The Port of Seattle continues to lose market share to other West Coast ports, thanks to inefficiency on the docks and transportation hurdles.
Seattle faces increased competition from ports in California and especially expansion projects in British Columbia. Marshalling an effective response is squarely on the plate of the port’s new CEO.
The idea of charging tolls on both of Seattle’s floating bridges is back in the news since the state treasurer called foul on financing plans to replace the 520 bridge.
A couple of thoughts on the controversy:
— Tolls should be implemented right away and the 520 project should start immediately. The charge would help finance the rebuilding project and be an incentive to use transit. Now driving makes sense despite soaring gas prices because buses have less convenient routes, take longer and sit in the same traffic as cars. Charging, say, $1 for each car crossing would begin to alter the calculation. Make it $2.50 next year and $5 after that and the calculus would change.
Tolls or congestion pricing must be paired with commensurate improvements in transit in order to realize the full benefit. Instead of just a regressive tax on poor drivers, tolls are a device to make more efficient use of the infrastructure. It’s important that people see improved mobility as a result.
— A steep charge to use the floating bridges — it could be as much as $10 — would lead to dramatic changes in the culture of the metropolitan ara. It would make living closer to work more desirable, keeping more Eastside workers closer to the job and stimulating demand for other services. Nightlife in Bellevue would grow beyond multiplexes and Cheesecake Factory.
A developer plans a $1 billion resort community including 2,700 housing units, hotels and retail next to an expanded ski area north of Spokane.
The proposed town would be similar to several other planned communities taking shape around the region. This week another instant city centered on a golf resort was announced north of Vancouver.
The Spokane-area resort hasn’t been billed as a major ski destination. Yet, while far smaller than Whistler, B.C., it would still meet demand from a growing population of skiers. It’s worth noting that the area has received abundant snowfall when many other ski areas in the region went without.
One way to make housing more affordable in Seattle is to provide more supply. Unfortunately that’s constrained by NIMBY planning and the third-rail of local politics: changing zoning that prefers for single-family homes.
So it’s interesting that housing supply is increasing anyway. This is by Eric de Place via the Sightline Institute’s Daily Score blog:
For the first time (at least in recent history), less than half of all housing units in Seattle are detached single family dwellings. That’s what I found yesterday, squirreled away in the depths of recently-released census data for 2005. Just 49.3 percent of the city’s units are of the traditional house-and-yard variety.
And as far as I can tell, Seattle is the only city in the U.S. Northwest where this is true. (The census numbers are easily available only in a format that makes it difficult to be certain.) Even in density-friendly Portland, fully 60 percent of the city’s housing units are conventional detached single family houses.
I should mention, however, that while Seattle has passed the halfway mark, detached single family houses are still easily the most common form of housing in Seattle. But I was equally surprised to find that 34 percent of all units in Seattle are in a building containing at least 10 units.
It’s interesting, I think, that the city’s image of itself hasn’t necessarily caught up to its new reality (as evidenced by the ritual of sackcloth and ashes still occasionally observed whenever urbanization is the topic). And while Seattle is still far less dense than, say, San Francisco, where only 16 percent of units are detached single family dwellings, I think we in the Emerald City can now officially consider ourselves urban.
Vancouver is adding a nonstop flight to New Zealand partly because the expanded international terminal at YVR makes the city more attractive to carriers, according to today’s Wall Street Journal ($).
The flight used to stop in Los Angeles but that airport is losing international flights because of its old, crowded international terminal. A similar story could be told about the rivalry between SEA and YVR.
The issue is about more than a handful of flights, as the WSJ puts it:
The stakes are high for cities. International passengers spend about twice as much as domestic travelers, and international airline service is one important competitive benchmark for cities competing for corporate relocations
Vancouver, which recently expanded its international terminal, is already wooing travelers from the Seattle area. Since significant improvements at Sea-Tac are years away, it has to rely on cutting fees to lure airlines, which is how it won a nonstop flight to Paris.
British Columbia is about to reopen trade offices in Japan and China, a move that could heighten competition for trade with Asia, according to the Vancouver Sun.
While B.C. currently has zero trade and investment offices in Asia, Alberta has five, Washington State has five, and Queensland, Australia has nine.
These bare numbers are one thing. Beyond them, the competition to stand out in Asia from this part of the world looks even stiffer next to Alberta’s sexy oil and gas industry and Washington State’s heavyweight Boeing, Weyerhaeuser and Microsoft companies, which have engaged China since the 1970s and 1980s.
By all accounts, it is high time for B.C. to get beyond the wood demonstration project it cost-shares with the forest industry in Shanghai and its Tourism B.C. office in Tokyo, which has been there since 1992.
The new offices represent the latest in a string of moves intended to make B.C. the trade gateway to North America, reaching as far as India.
Seattle and Vancouver may jointly host a major sports event like a World Cup, at least if the cities’ tourism boards can help it.
The idea of capitalizing on the 2010 Olympics with a major regional event has been around a while. Now the tourism groups are looking at creating an entirely new marqee soccer, cycling or soccer event.
Of course the groups need to build local support in order to shoulder the financial and political cost of an event. Improving transportation links are essential. One interesting idea: adding seaplane service between downtown Seattle and downtown Vancouver.
It may get harder to find media coverage of Canada beginning this summer, when the last U.S. newspaper correspondent leaves the country.
Of course wire services, freelancers and contract staff will still cover Canada after the Washington Post closes its Toronto bureau. But it’s debatable how much attention stories will command when not being covered by senior journalists. The effect will be magnified since regional news outfits take cues from East Coast papers.
Coverage of trade and transportation issues involving Canada is especially critical to Cascadia but usually falls short. For example, the dispute over softwood lumber imports was daily news in Vancouver but usually drew a shrug from editors in Seattle. It often takes a Canadian serial killer to get headlines in the U.S.
The effort to cut costs led The Wall Street Journal to announce the closure of its Canada bureau in December. That makes Canada the only major economy without coverage by the top financial newspaper.
Here’s another option for living in Cascadia without owning a car: more car-sharing companies are opening in the region.
Zipcar launched its service in Vancouver this week, hoping to ape success it has had in New York and other major cities where car ownership is less than convenient. It’s part of a planned expansion along the West Coast, including Seattle and Portland.
In Seattle, Flexcar remains the main alternative to — gasp — owning your own car.
Think there’s no rush to fix Seattle’s fragile bridges? The Washington State Department of Transportation has a scary simulation of a collapsing 520 freeway bridge for you:
