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What if we could click our ruby slippers and transport ourselves to a magical place where polluters pay and we all get checks in the mail? The Oregon legislature is considering two bills that would take us there. When designing a program to make climate polluters pay, one of the most important decisions is what to do with the money. Northeast states and California invest in energy efficiency and transportation....

In Washington and across the Northwest, we are already seeing devastating impacts of climate change. In Hood Canal and Puget Sound, shellfish are being destroyed by an acidifying ocean, declining snowpack threatens water supply on both sides of the Cascades, and record-setting wildfires have ravaged Eastern Washington communities. The good news is that we can do something about it. We at Sightline are always saying that a well-designed program can...

This is the single most responsible official traffic forecast I’ve seen from any government agency, ever: It’s from a new transportation revenue forecast (pdf link, see p. 27) recently published by the Washington State Office of Financial Management. Their previous forecast, in pink, assumed that traffic would grow endlessly, much as it did during the 1950s through 1990s. But the new forecast, in blue, assumes that the modest traffic growth of the past decade will continue, and...

It’s common knowledge near the US-Canada border that lots of things are cheaper down south. Head to Whatcom County, Washington, and the locals will complain about Canadians holding up the line at the gas station: “They’re even filling up black plastic garbage bags!” They will point you to a video of Canadian piranhas devouring a crowd of Bellinghamsters (or at least their milk supplies at Costco). They will tell you about...

Political observers have all but written the obituary for a transportation package in Olympia this year. Deadlocked negotiators could go back to the table in early 2014, or even start afresh in the next legislative session. Yet the impasse could be a blessing in disguise, since it could give legislators a chance to fix the package’s fatal flaw: that it goes wildly against what Washington residents say they want from...

King County is laying the groundwork to solve its own transit funding problems in the event that the legislature fails to come up with a “balanced” transportation package anytime soon. Under its Plan B option (which we argued here should really be Plan A), the county could avoid cataclysmic cuts in King County Metro bus service by creating a Transportation Benefit District and raising its own revenue. Here are more...

Last week, we argued that the rest of Washington State should simply walk away from a $12.3 billion transportation package being floated by the Senate Majority Coalition Caucus. This chart explains why: Its priorities are exactly the reverse of what people say they want. A new public survey from the Washington State Transportation Commission released last Friday offers a reality check on negotiations underway in Olympia about what new transportation...

Earlier this year, the US House of Representatives—a body that has shut down the government over health care reform, taken a hatchet to food stamps, opposed regulating greenhouse gases, and held immigration legislation hostage—still managed to support a federal transportation bill that devoted roughly 20 percent of its funding to transit + bikes + walking and 80 percent to roads. How much worse could the road-heavy transportation package being floated...

For those of you old enough to remember Twin Peaks, I present my suggestion for the ideal spokesperson for the Washington State Transportation Revenue Forecast Council: OK, now that the shivers have worn off, let me explain. WSDOT depends on revenue from tolling to pay for some of its construction projects. One notable example is the Tacoma Narrows Bridge: WSDOT added a second, tolled span in 2007, counting on steady growth...

The Oregonian ran an interesting piece in today’s paper, pointing out that total miles driven in the state peaked nearly a decade ago. “When the economy took a nosedive in 2008, dragging jobs and disposable income with it, Oregon residents reacted by driving their cars less. Or so goes the conventional wisdom. “But an analysis of new traffic data by The Oregonian shows that driving in the state actually peaked...