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The board of the greater Vancouver transportation authority, TransLink, will vote for a third time today on whether to build a rail rapid transit line from Vancouver to the airport and on to Richmond (dubbed the RAV line), as the CBC reports. Six weeks ago, the board shocked the region by rejecting RAV, despite big piles of money offered by the federal and provincial governments and by the airport authority....

The most recent city to be inspired by Vancouver, BC’s smart-growth success is none other than Fort Worth, as the Star-Telegram reported last week (registration required). The fast-growing Texas city is using Vancouver, particularly its waterfront development, as the model for a grand plan to transform its downtown, its river, and boost the city’s quality of life “for the next century.” Early on, the idea—which includes rerouting part of the...

BC is experiencing rampant wildfires right now. From the Vancouver Sun: Nearly 50 new forest fires started on Wednesday, bringing the total to 260 wildfire burning around the province.Last year at this time there were 101 fires, in what turned out to be the worst year ever. We’ve known for a while that conditions in BC are ripe for wildfires. The connection between global climate change and the region’s odd...

Tracking clearcuts provides a rough gauge for how extensively humans have altered the forests of the Northwest—and for how effectively northwesterners are safeguarding their distinctive natural heritage. Clearcut logging alters natural ecosystems, constricting the habitat for old-forest species, which cannot survive in immature second-growth stands. And all forms of logging emit greenhouse gases, which are responsible for global warming, and require road building, which causes erosion and degrades streams. Clearcuts...

California’s much-anticipated plan for slashing climate pollution from new cars and trucks is previewed in today’s New York Times. The announcement opens a juicy opportunity for the Northwest states and BC, as I’ll explain in a moment. First, though, the numbers in the draft plan: a 30 percent greenhouse gas emission reduction among new cars, phased in between 2009 and 2030. Because vehicles remain in the fleet for about 15...

British Columbia may be in for another summer of forest fires. Similarly, forests in the western United States also appear headed for another season of fires, the fruit of an ongoing drought. Fire, which is often beneficial to the forest ecosystem, can give rise to extensive salvage logging, which isn’t. Officials in the province point out that people are responsible for 292 of the 323 fires that BC has already...

The Canadian federal government is going through its process of figuring out how to boost fuel economy, to comply with the nation’s Kyoto obligations. Unfortunately, gas tax increases are out. But gas-guzzler taxes, tax credits for hybrids, and-best of all-a comprehensive system of feebates are still on the table, as the Globe and Mail reports. It’s a very encouraging development. Feebates (fees imposed on the sale of inefficient vehicles that...

As if drought and fire aren’t bad enough, Cascadia’s eastern forests are beset by yet a third plague: bark beetle infestations. Similar to the scourge of British Columbia’s interior forests, the mountain pine beetle, the bark beetles are poised to take America by storm. Higher than normal temperatures have led to beetle proliferation—they’re reproducing twice as fast as they used to. The beetles can kill millions of trees, leaving behind...

Looking for something else, I ran across this fact about SUVs: In 2001, the death rate for people in SUVs was 3.5 percent higher than for people in cars, say figures released Tuesday by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. This runs counter to the intuition of many SUV buyers, who think their massive vehicles are safer than shorter, squatter roadsters. Apparently, the benefits of size—namely, “winning” in a collision with...

This fascinating article in Harvard Magazine summarizes some of the latest research on obesity and inactivity-one of the most important health trends of the decade in Cascadia. (Check if you’re too heavy on the calculator here.) Some snippets to convince you to read it: Two-thirds of American adults are overweight, and half of these are obese. . . [and] up to 80 percent of American adults should weigh less than...