Search Results
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Meet the People Who Still Believe in Facts
Spoiler alert: we’re talking about you in the title of this article. As a Sightline reader, you’re an engaged individual who values the facts. We know it. You stay up-to-date on our in-depth research, analysis, and commentary—all tools that equip Northwest citizens and decision-makers with the policy details and practical solutions they need to advance long-term solutions to our region’s most significant challenges. Here is a surprising fact that you...Read more » -
Few Would Lose from Removing Snake River Dams
Breaching the lower Snake River dams and restoring the river would not come cheap. The cost could exceed a billion dollars. (The value of wild salmon make that expense worthwhile, I argued in the first article of this series.) But making whole the irrigators and grain barging companies that are the principal beneficiaries of the dams would be surprisingly affordable. In some cases, paying them for their losses would cost...Read more » -
Herbicide Use on Washington Wheat Fields Has Quadrupled. Tech Could Slash That.
When Bryan Jones drives a spade into his soil, he unearths signs of life: earthworm-sized pinholes lace the soil profile, aerating his fields and making pathways for spring rains to soak in. Bryan is a fourth-generation wheat farmer in Whitman County, Washington, near the heart of the Pacific Northwest’s wheat country. He credits his two decades of conservation tillage with bringing the worms back to his family’s farm, after generations...Read more » -
Eliminate the Senate!
Author’s note: This is a longer version of an Oregonian op-ed from July 21. American voters, thinkers, media outlets, our policy partners, and we at Sightline have been saying for years that broken institutions of democracy block progress on all the things we care about. In June, the Oregon senate showed just how true that is. By fleeing the state to prevent a quorum, a tiny number of senators were...Read more » -
How Not to Be a Transit Supervillain
Let’s say you were the kind of kid who rooted for Darth Vader in Star Wars, for the Joker in Batman, for Magneto in the X-Men. You’re determined to be a villain—heck, a supervillain. But now, as an adult, you’re in charge not of a legion of stormtroopers or a criminal syndicate. Instead, you somehow ended up running a regional transit agency. (Hollywood, call me.) So here you are, aspiring...Read more » -
A Duplex, a Triplex and a Fourplex Can Cut a Block’s Carbon Impact 20%
To understand why housing policy is climate policy, consider two city blocks with 18 homes each. On one of those blocks, suppose something happens that’s currently legal almost everywhere: Three relatively old, disintegrating homes are torn down and replaced by three 3,400-square-foot homes. Let’s call this the McMansion Block. But on the other block, suppose we do something that’s currently illegal on most of the land in most cities, but...Read more » -
Great News: Portland’s Next Rail Line May Have Fewer Parking Garages
The people planning the Portland area’s next light-rail line seem to be steering away from a scenario where taxpayers waste $100 million of precious public-transit funding on a series of giant parking garages. But unless the public speaks up in the next month, it’s possible that a handful of elected officials will push to build the garages anyway—despite a mountain of evidence that spending the money on bus service, infrastructure...Read more » -
Tearing Down McMansion-Sized Housing Myths
Last week, one of the leading housing obstructionists in Cascadia’s biggest city took to the Seattle Times op-ed page to make a case against the city’s two most consequential pro-housing affordability reforms—and efforts in the state legislature to bring affordable home choices to communities across Washington. That case, published in the largest-circulation periodical in the region, is a fire hose of misinformation, a masterpiece of gish gallop, a pack—as Kurt...Read more » -
Should Portland Try Decongestion Pricing?
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FAQ About I-5 Rose Quarter Expansion and Decongestion Pricing in Portland