Cascadia Report

Category: Seattle

  • Dems must be bold with Washington budget

    Democrats who control the legislature in Washington stand to lose their advantage if they don’t make bold moves during this year’s session.

    The session kicked off this week with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s proposals to boost spending on education and other programs. It was met with a preemptive strike in The Seattle Times, claiming the spending is ill-timed and unsustainable.

    Josh Feit at The Stranger outlines some of the flaws in the argument. Joel Connelly rightly points out examples of how failing to enact policy solutions that make lives better is a good way for a party to lose power. Gregoire has already whiffed once (on the viaduct) and gets scarce credit for her successes. With the 2008 elections on the horizon, voters will need to see action.

  • New award of China flights leaves out Cascadia

    The U.S. gave United Airlines the lucrative right to start flying nonstop between China and Washington, D.C. But what about Cascadia?

    jets waiting to take off; photo by bbc.co.ukFlights between China and the U.S. are tightly regulated, largely because China wants to protect its developing airline industry. The U.S. chose the United flight to Beijing over Continental, which wanted to fly to Shanghai from New York, and American, which wanted to fly to Beijing from Dallas. United’s case reportedly was helped because Washington, D.C., is the largest U.S. metropolitan area without China service.

    Now the scramble begins for the next new route, to be awarded in 2008. Seattle is the second-largest U.S. metro area without China service, according to this press release issued during the Chinese president’s visit to Seattle last year. Nonstops help business and tourism, but Seattle hasn’t had one to China for several years. (Note that Vancouver has daily flights to three Chinese cities.)

  • Canada approves $3.3B Weyerhaeuser deal

    Canadian regulators okayed the merger of Domtar, the country’s largest paper company, with a unit of Weyerhaeuser.

    The U.S. already approved the $3.3 billion deal, which should close this quarter. The combination clears the way for further cross-border consolidation in the forest products sector. Some other deals are already happening.

  • Seattle area needs single transit agency

    The Seattle area needs a single transit agency to prioritize projects and recommend funding and land use policies, according to a new state study.

    The recommendation, expected after a preliminary report last fall, would make the area’s transit and development planning apparatus more similar to those in Vancouver and Portland — where transit projects are more than plans. The Seattle area has six major transit agencies and 128 governments involved in transit planning, the study found.

  • Gates Foundation’s practices in question

    The Gates Foundation has investments in companies that undermine the goals of the foundation’s philanthropy, according to a long investigation pubished in the Los Angeles Times Sunday.

    Using the most recent data available, a Times tally showed that hundreds of Gates Foundation investments totaling at least $8.7 billion, or 41% of its assets, not including U.S. and foreign government securities have been in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.

    The report is generating lots of comments, ranging from suspicion of the foundation’s goals to surprise that the Seattle Times hasn’t covered such a story in its own backyard. Never mind that similar charges could be made against most large pools of money that aim primarily at generating a return on investment.

    The article hardly addresses the issue of how the foundation could better invest its $65 billion or so in practice. With such a huge account, at some point the foundation would have to choose between getting a the best possible return or short-changing its charity programs.

  • Compromise in the works for Seattle’s viaduct

    A compromise appears to be in the works to replace Seattle’s dangerous viaduct without asking voters to decide between a tunnel or new elevated freeway.

    Yesterday Gov. Chris Gregoire stepped up pressure to force a solution by threatening to rebuild the viaduct unless the city takes action by spring. She previously punted instead of deciding the fate of the state highway.

    Politicians are paid to reach compromises like this rather than pass the tough decisions to voters. A ballot on replacing the freeway would mean a sound bite-filled campaign and inconclusive result (monorail, anyone?) because all the options and financial conditions couldn’t possibly be presented. Instead of a lengthy debate, the city should move ahead with the fastest, least-costly option to replace the aging viaduct: a package of transit and street improvements.

  • Suburbs are the new cities

    Seattle’s sense of itself could get a healthy challenge next week when Portland author Matthew Stadler talks about how suburbs increasingly have more diversity and vitality than cities.

    It’s an obvious point to anyone who’s visited Bellevue or Burnaby, which are more diverse and affordable than much of their nearby cities. We can quibble with some of the details of his argument, but it’s clear that the major cities are now just part of a metropolis rather than its only center. That’s a reason why transportation and development issues need to be region-wide rather than just within city boundaries.

    Here’s how The Stranger describes Stadler’s idea:

    He wants to reorient the way we read the city, the way we experience it, the way we code it. He also wants a City Beautiful movement—not a movement where beautiful buildings are forced on the public for the improvement of our ugly souls, but, in a Kantian reversal, a movement where the public projects beauty onto buildings.

  • Cascadia’s housing may be the “revenge of the small”

    BusinessWeek.com says Portland, Seattle and Vancouver are making such strong efforts to encourage urban housing that visiting them is like going to a different country.

    We won’t deny the similarities across Cascadia. But there’s a big gap among the cities when it comes to the transit and zoning that makes urban housing liveable.

    Still, the article highlights progress, including how small, well-designed houses are going onto lots formerly of large single houses with yards. Apparently this offers more liveable space than refitting existing buildings with mother-in-law apartments.

  • Port of Seattle names new CEO

    The Port of Seattle named a veteran of the real estate and port industries as its new leader. There’s reason to be cautiously optimistic about the choice.

    Seattle's struggling seaportInitial reports say Tay Yoshitani, a 60-year-old former Army captain and Harvard MBA, will be a big change in personality and management approach for the struggling port. The often-divided Seattle port commission unanimously picked Yoshitani, who had won praise for improving operations as the deputy director at the Port of Oakland.

    Already the Seattle P-I’s editorialists seem to be popping champagne because of Yoshitani’s reputation for openness.

    Annual compensation of $356,000 will make Yoshitani the country’s best-paid port CEO and he may even earn it as he tries to reverse declines at Sea-Tac airport and at Seattle’s harbor, while reducing the port’s tax on King County residents.

    Surely he will be a sharp contrast with current CEO Mic Dinsmore, who has controlled the port for 14 years. Yoshitani’s resume suggests a new approach, said Rich Berkowitz, local head of a maritime trade organization and a former candidate for Port commission.

    “Mic came from operations and had a lot of time on the docks, moving cargo. But he became a supernova and that made him an expert in things he shouldn’t have been,” Berkowitz said. “Just from his resume, Yoshitani is going to have a new approach.”

  • Maybe Seattle doesn’t need to move so many cars

    Maybe Seattle doesn’t need a freeway along its downtown waterfront. Gov. Chris Gregoire punted on the decision of whether to rebuild the viaduct or replace it with a tunnel. She could’ve questioned the need for that much car-moving capacity:

    It’s hardly an unreasonable order. Legislators don’t rush in with cash when health departments, human service agencies or educators complain that demand for service is overtaxing facilities. First they ask if problems can be contained through innovation and better use of resources.

    Her lack of a decision is ironic because she truly seems to realize the challenge is transporting more people and freight, not more cars and trucks. And do it soon. She explains her vision in this conversation here.