Cascadia Report

Blog

  • Solutions wanted for Seattle housing crunch

    The crop of swanky high-rise condos going up in Downtown Seattle are mostly out-of-reach for the middle class. So what can the city do about it?

    Nicole Brodeur’s column in today’s Seattle Times provides a gee-whiz tour of one planned tower and concludes that the city isn’t doing enough for the “working class.” She says the recent zoning rules aren’t enough and the city “doesn’t have a better strategy for affordable living.” But she fails to provide any new ideas.

    The fact is, those new condos are expensive because lots of well-heeled people want to live in them. Build more units and the prices will come down. Two other steps would help make Seattle more affordable: 1) build a better transit system so people don’t need to own a car and 2) improve the city schools so people who can’t afford private school don’t have to flee for the suburbs.

    No, downtown condos won’t make Seattle “world-class.” But they could be a small part of making the city as liveable as Cascadia neighbors Portland and Vancouver.

  • United by a common threat

    If a distant rogue country possessed weapons of mass destruction that were possibly poised to attack us, wouldn’t that merit media attention?

    Seattle and Vancouver are the only major population centers in North America that are reachable by North Korea’s longest-range missles. This threat unites Cascadia and provides a scary reminder of how our concerns differ from those of eastern power centers like New York, Washington or Toronto.

    But you’d hardly know it living here and following the local media.

    North Korea said last week that it had a weapon and planned a missle test. Yet the major Puget Sound and Vancouver newspapers haven’t devoted front-page real estate to the issue. It’s nowhere on local TV and radio, even as media report daily on the carnage in Iraq and paranoia over terrorism continues. In Seattle, a neighborhood library was evacuated Tuesday when a librarian reported a “white substance” in the book drop. An Seattle alternative paper even pokes fun at the Korean threat on its blog.

  • More cross-border meetings?

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    Washington Governor Chris Gregoire was scheduled to meet Tuesday in British Columbia with Premier Gordon Campbell. It’s a big symbolic step toward deepening Cascadia ties.

    Gregoire plans to hold frequent cross-border meetings and wants to broaden links between the government agencies of the state and province, she said at a press conference Monday. The announcement was broadcast on TVW but it barely merited a sidenote in this AP story in the Seattle Times.

    Meetings between the leaders of Washington and British Columbia have been rare. During the 1990s the most prominent visits by Washington’s governor were for the annual Puget Sound business leaders’ retreat in Vancouver.

    Gregoire said she plans to focus on border security, economic development, capitalizing on the 2010 Olympics, and measures to deal with a pandemic. She said Washington and B.C. need to convince the federal government to make sensible improvements to border security. Recent talk about requiring passports to cross the border already have scared off tourism though there’s no immminent change in the rules, she said.

  • More Cascadia train links

    Zg_talgo_092699_richmondbchTrain ties between Seattle and Portland will grow July 1 with the addition of a fifth daily Amtrak round-trip between the cities.

    The additional train helps integrate Cascadia by making connections easier along the corridor from Bellingham to Portland. Here’s the info from Amtrak.

    This is a case of supply trailing demand. Highways along the Cascadia corridor are increasingly clogged. The latest train is the first new service in the corridor since 1999. Even without additional service, passenger traffic from Seattle-Portland rose 6 percent from 2004 to 2005, according to a Seattle Times report.

    The new train is funded by a multi-billion-dollar transportation package approved last year by Washington, whose taxpayers fund three current round-trips using new train equipment. The trains make the trip in about 3:30. A daily Amtrak on its way to L.A. and back also serves the route more slowly.

    Cascadia travelers are waiting for British Columbia’s government to step up with funding to fix the weakest link in the Cascadia corridor: between the U.S. border and downtown Vancouver.

  • Anti-logging vote may help Republican

    Rep. Dave Reichert (R – WA, 8th) was the only Western Republican to vote against a bill that would lift environmental regulations to allow more logging. This vote, on top of support for a new wilderness area and helping to keep Puget Sound relatively oil tanker-free, should help him hold his seat in November.

    The so-called Forest Emergency Recovery and Research Act promises to fund rural schools and provide timber-industry jobs by speeding up logging after storms or fires. The idea is deeply unpopular in places like most of Reichert’s suburban district. The vote was a no-brainer for Reichert: the bill was going to pass anyway (it did by a margin of 243-182).

  • Burner narrows gap in suburban race: reports

    2002994511Darcy Burner’s chances of overtaking Rep. Dave Reichert (R – WA, 8th) have improved, according to several recent reports. For example, The Seattle Times reported Monday that she’s raised a surprisingly large $300,000-plus recently and convinced local and national Dems to back her.

    The story sounds coincidentally similar to another in the New York Times about lawyer/novice politician Kirsten Gillibrand’s race to unseat a popular Republican incumbent. This is exactly the sort of story you’d expect with the election six months away: evidence that a horse race may be on the horizon.

    The Seattle P-I credits Burner’s blogging experience for raising her visibility with Web-savvy donors. Of course, the backers of the Daily Kos and other blogs get a fair share of credit.

    Polls still show her trailing the more experienced Reichert. Though the election is still a ways off, I haven’t noticed any sign in the district that Reichert is in trouble.

  • Reichert kicks of reelection campaign

    Rep. Dave Reichert (R – WA, 8th) kicked off his reelection bid Tuesday with a breakfast in Bellevue. His message is that the country is doing well because of his votes to support the Bush Administration. And his reelection chances are good too: he’s an incumbent and has twice as much money as opponent Darcy Burner.

  • The devil is in the details

    The Cantwell-McGavick race for U.S. Senate finally got front-page treatment in The Seattle Times, which it calls a “contrast of moderates.” True, the contest pits middle-of-the-road Cantwell with reasonable, smooth-talking McGavick. But isn’t the real test how they would handle backroom negotiations and how they would vote — not how they campaign?

    The story includes some feel-good detail: The paper says McGavick, who lives in The Highlands, drives a Mini Cooper (list price: about $20,000). Until recent months he was seen driving a decidedly pricier SUV and a sports car.

  • Stakes rise in Viaduct debate

    The P-I came out with an editorial saying that maybe Seattle doesn’t need to rebuild its ugly downtown viaduct freeway. The editorial cites a citizens group’s contention that a surface roadway and better transit would meet the city’s needs and help make it more liveable. The final thought:

    “it is worth the time and money for the City Council to carefully examine the coalition’s proposal. Seattle faces the decision of a generation that it must get right.”

  • Gap narrows in 8th District race

    Reports suggest that Darcy Burner has narrowed the financial gap in her bid to replace Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA, 8th). Reichert now has a 2-to-1 advantage.

    But a Republican rebuttal in a Seattle Times story shows what Burner’s up against:

    “She is a Microsoft program officer. She is a liberal activist. She’s never held office. That is not a recipe for a top-tier congressional election,” said Jonathan Collegio, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee.