Cascadia Report

Blog

  • Seattle should mimic Stockholm’s traffic plan

    During the last six months Stockholm tested a sophisticated traffic-management system designed to ease congestion, cut pollution and improve the quality of life in the city, according to a story in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (subscription required). It’s a model that could easily be implemented in Seattle, which has a central area that’s roughly the same size and has similar geographic chokepoints for traffic.

    tolls in StockholmThe Swedish city used a congestion-pricing system that charges drivers different amounts depending on the time of day. A windshield-mounted transponder automatically deducts the tolls from the driver’s bank account every time the car passes through a checkpoint. Since the tolls rise or fall depending on congestion, drivers adjust their habits. The result is more space for bicycles, pedestrians and buses, and less time for thousands of cars to spew exhaust while stuck in traffic.

    A similar system would fit well with the Seattle’s stated goal of making the city friendlier for travel by bicycle. Stockholm ran the test and plans a referendum to decide whether to keep it. A yes vote would sustain public support better than any plan imposed by a bureaucracy would.

    Similar congestion-pricing programs have been discussed in Cascadia, where gridlock is likely to spread even if residents heavily tax themselves to pay for mass transit and road projects. The Puget Sound Regional Council years ago won a federal grant for a pilot project that would use car GPS to assess tolls on some roads. But it’s unclear how that project paid off or might be more widely implemented.

  • Region grapples with water shortage

    It’s hard to imagine in this soggy region, but water resources are under pressure.

    British Columbia is starting to run out of groundwater thanks to soaring population, more wells and climate changes including less snow, according to the latest in a series of water-related stories in The Tyee.

    Researchers don’t know exactly how much groundwater is withdrawn now, the story says. But there’s evidence of dropping acquifers, especially in the Okanogan and on Vancouver Island. With the area’s population forecast to grow by a third to one-half by 2020, alternate water sources need to be found.

    Meanwhile, in the Portland area the EPA recently designated a major aquifer under Clark County for closer consideration during construction projects. The decision doesn’t automatically stop any projects but is a sign that the health of the area’s water resources should at least be a factor.

  • Alaska Airlines may fly to Hawaii

    Alaska Airlines is working to pass federal safety hurdles that would allow it to fly long flights over water, potentially to Hawaii and Central America, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal.

    The Seattle airline remains tied up in safety and scheduling problems but is expanding to places where people from Cascadia want to go. The new certification would allow it to fly its 737-800 jets up to three hours away from land.

  • Growth-management laws still aren’t safe

    Washington’s so-called property-rights initiative, I-933, is receiving only lukewarm support from business groups that generally want to roll back land-use laws, according to a report today. Supporters of a similar measures a decade ago reportedly are taking a pass this year because they see it as a lost cause.

    Farmland threatened by initiativeDon’t be so sure. While there may be differences over this specific initiative, momentum is behind the “government causes our problems” mindset, especially in exurbs and rural parts of the state.

    Over breakfast in Concrete, Skagit County, today I noticed that the latest Sedro-Woolley Times-Courier carried an opinion piece by the Building Industry Association of Washington, laying blame for the state’s affordable housing cruch on restrictive growth-management laws. Technically the group isn’t working to pass I-933 but its efforts to undermine land-use laws will help the measure. Similar screeds are appearing around that state and could easily put I-933 over the top.

    Unfortunately the campaign against I-933 hasn’t caught fire. They talks about abstractions, like how much traffic the repealing land-use laws would supposedly cause. But it’s far from clear that those those abstractions will persuade enough voters to support the status quo in November.

  • The confessional will help McGavick

    The chattering class overwhelmingly seems to think that Mike McGavick’s open letter last week admitting several personal mistakes was itself a mistake.

    In the letter, U.S. Senate hopeful McGavick said his regrets include being a lousy husband, getting a DUI, being an absent parent and laying off people while he was Safeco’s CEO. In 2003 his ex-wife told me that he was on the phone with Slade Gorton while she was in labor with their son.

    These issues may have been brought up by Maria Cantwell’s camp late in the race. Confessing now gets them out into the open and also makes McGavick seem like the honest, aw-shucks guy who most voters like to support. It’s another opportunity for McGavick to talk about personality instead of issues, in a year when his party’s record and stance seem deeply unpopular in this state.

    The race for governor in 2004 showed that a nice-guy image can nearly beat a solid policy wonk (Dino Rossi would be governor except for a few dozen votes!). By basing his campaign in Seattle and spending more, McGavick is sure to improve on Rossi’s record. Until Cantwell’s campaign gains some traction on the issues, McGavick’s chance of winning remains much higher than Democrats want to think.

  • Regional support needed for West Coast rail

    Eliminate hundreds of cars from the road, stimulate tourism and maintain a viable transport corridor along the West Coast. That’s what Amtrak’s daily train between Seattle and Los Angeles does. It also may need the support of Cascadia states to stay in operation.

    This piece in a California newspaper makes the case that passengers are effectively supporting the 1,400-mile run despite repeated Bush Administration attempts to eliminate its budget. The three states should provide financial support in exchange for better service, which would fit with Cascadia’s regional trasport needs.

  • Expect more cross-border timber mergers

    More deals between U.S. and Canadian forestry companies are likely as the industry continues to struggle with excess capacity in North America and low prices, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers.

    This week’s combination of paper units of Weyerhaeuser and Domtar, a big Montreal-based firm, brought more attention to the trend. Weyerhaeuser, with annual sales of $23 billion, is trying to boost its profitability by jettisoning one of its paper businesses and hopes the move helps fend off hostile takeover attempts by private equity firms.

    The industry has been cutting costs for years by closing mills and consolidating. In fact, Weyerhaeuser became a major Canadian operator in 1999 when it bought MacMillan Bloedel. But an acceleration of the trend could further undermine employment in rural parts of Cascadia and continue development away from the industry that largely built this region.

  • Alaska voters okay tax on cruises

    Cruise ship passengers who sail to Alaska from Seattle or Vancouver will each pay a $50 tax under a new law approved by Alaska voters this week. New taxes also will cover gambling and profits from cruise-related excursions in the state.

    The cruise industry spent heavily to counter the measure and is already threatening cutbacks. Carnival says the measure will cost it $24 million in 2007.

    It’s the latest attempt in Cascadia to get the booming cruise business to shoulder more of the costs of cruise-related traffic, pollution and tourism services. The bet is that the Alaska business is unique enough and most travelers wealthy enough to pay the extra fee.

  • Conference tackles what makes Cascadia unique

    A conference starting in Vancouver today explores the similarities among residents of Cascadia. Scholars, pollsters, environmentalists and others will discuss how we relate to the region’s geography and our “spirituality, ecology and social transformation.”

    This is how the organizers describe it:

    One focus will be on how public life is developing differently in the continental Pacific Northwest because of the region’s cultural openness, signified by a record low level of devotion to formal religion. The flip side of this phenomenon is an unusually passionate interest in “spirituality,” including reverence for nature.

    The event is all day today and Friday at Simon Fraser University. Call 604-291-5855 for more details.

  • Vancouver wooing Seattle passengers

    A newly appointed Seattle representative of Vancouver airport is launching a campaign to encourage more travelers from the region to use the Canadian airport for international flights, getting them to go north instead of through SFO or LAX.

    The number of passengers from Seattle connecting through Vancouver to Asia soared 40 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to the report in the Puget Sound Business Journal. Seattle passengers account for about 5 percent of all YVR traffic to Asia.

    And no wonder. Vancouver has 117 weekly flights to 8 Asian cities and 75 weekly flights to 11 European cities, according to the report. Seattle has 36 flights a week to three Asian cities and 24 flights to three European ones. Some of that is because Vancouver is Canada’s West coast metropolis.

    The development manager at Sea-Tac is quoted as hoping that near-capacity flights from SEA will attract more carriers. But the airport has lost fllights to Tokyo, Osaka and China in recent years.