Bikes, buses, bills. The Daily Score churned out more geekery than ever this year, penning more than 450 posts throughout the year that were read about 300,000 times. I thought it would be a fun to take a look back over the past 12 months to see what the most popular posts were.
1. Cargo Bikes: This picto-essay was far and away our most popular post of the year, catching the eye of over 14,000 readers. Alan investigates numerous solutions to a simple problem: how do you tow things around by bike?
2. Parable of the Electric Bike:Cargo bikes weren’t the only two-wheeled wonder to earn some ink and eyes on the Daily Score. In our five-part series, Alan Durning turns a hard eye to electric bikes: Why haven’t they caught on? What will it take? And most importantly, he explains why electric bikes aren’t the answer to our prayers; we are.
3. Wheels on the Bus:Follow Sightline editor and researcher Jennifer Langston and daughter Edie on a ride on the Seattle streetcar. Plus, find out how buses are one of the safest ways to travel.
4. Year of Living Car-lessly Experiment: Well, it’s not a 2010 series, but three years later our series on living sans car remains one of our most popular topics. After the demise of the family Volvo, follow Alan Durning’s foray into car-less living. (Spoiler alert: the experiment went well enough that Alan is car-free years later.)
5. And the Second Greenest City Is…: In January we crunched the numbers to find out which of Cascadia’s three biggest cities was the “greenest.” While first place came as no surprise (Vancouver), the runner-up was a bit unexpected.
6. Kerry-Lieberman Climate Bill: The Details: This year was a high-speed roller-coaster ride for national climate policy. One of the more promising bills was sponsored by Senators John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman. It would have enacted a nationwide cap-and-trade system for carbon emissions. Eric de Place took a look at the bill and weighed its merits.
7. Shrinky Dink: Tiny houses are always a crowd-pleaser here on the blog (and in Sightline’s daily news service). In June, Roger Valdez examined the trend in Portland and Vancouver, looking at cottages, laneway houses, and cohousing.
8. Updating the “Granny Cart”: Part of a set of posts on human-powered transportation options, this post looks at the reinvention of the “granny cart”–a solution for the car-less challenged by hauling the groceries home from the store.
9. How Does Your City Get to Work?: There’s no doubt northwesterners take a variety of modes to get to work. But it’s not just the big cities that are getting out of the car and onto the bus, bike, or skipping the commute altogether. See how our region’s cities rank.
10. The Dirt on Organic Produce: Sightline intern Michelle Harvey reports on a new study showing organic produce outdoes conventional farming when it comes to our soil, bodies, and taste buds.
That about does it for the year’s favorites. Now, a couple New Year’s resolutions for the Daily Score:
- We’ll keep writing if you keep reading. Our bloggers are primed and ready to dive into the issues of a new decade. We promise we’ll do our best to address the issues of the day, help you understand sustainability’s complex issues, and go deeper into wonky details than most dare venture.
- We’re doing our darndest to make sure this blog does its best to serve you. We’re already knee deep in a redesign of the Sightline Daily website, so keep an eye out for exciting changes in coming months to the look and feel of the blog. We’ll speed things up, make things easier to find, and make commenting easier.
Which brings me to our last resolution. Not one from us, but one from you. We want to hear more from our readers. We know our comment function is a little clunky, but soon you’ll have no excuse. We want to hear your thoughts, answer your questions, and get a real discussion going about how we can make our region an even better place to live.
So if you’ve never commented before, drop us a line here. Or, if privacy is more your style, never hesitate to send a thought or question our way via email to editor@sightline.org.
Photo Credits:
- Beer and pizza cargo bike, Portland—Flickr photographer Elly Blue, Creative Commons.
- Vancouver skyline—Flickr photographer footloosiety, Creative Commons.
- Hotrod Granny Cart photo courtesy of Flickr photographer uzbeckistan.
Shel Anderson
I just forwarded this email to a friend. We were having one of those ‘OMG the country is going to hell in a handbasket’ talks, and I realized that she needed to read some good news for a change – relate to those little steps that people, cities, and NW states are taking to change the world.
Brian Wegener
I would elevate your series on stormwater pollution to the top 10. It is a big problem that we are finally taking the initials steps to solve.
scarls5
There’s a scavenger hunt bike ride that goes across the country in the summer. One of the qualifying quiz questions had to do with a cargo bike that pours beer, which may have driven the unusual number of hits to that story.