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Alan At Seattle’s latitude, fully dark night is currently lasting only two hours. At Bellingham’s, there is no fully dark night right now. That’s what the Cliff Mass says. Initially intended as a weekend reading item, my reflection on Rebecca Solnit’s stunning Wanderlust grew into a full-blown blog article. Read it here. Jennifer Given my daughter’s obsession with the as-yet empty bird nest on our front porch, I was peculiarly...

Former Seattle Planning Commissioner Sarah Snider Komppa spent months visiting and comparing 10 North American cities to answer the following questions: What makes dense urban areas attractive to kids and parents? Why do some give up and move to the suburbs? What are the necessary ingredients to support families living downtown? What policy changes do we need to make? Komppa took the time to answer some questions about what her...

Sound Transit Bus 554 makes its first non-freeway Seattle stop at 5th and Jackson in the International District. A first-time Seattle visitor departing there is greeted not by a vibrant streetscape, but by five vast surface parking lots: a bold but disappointing proclamation that even in the transit-friendly urban core, the car is still king. Could a land-value tax help dethrone the automobile?

Downtown Seattle holds some of the most valuable real estate west of Minneapolis and north of San Francisco. Yet a stroll through Seattle’s urban core reveals unwelcome surprises: rundown, decrepit buildings; empty land parcels; and surface parking lots on prime real estate, like the one below, just blocks away from high rises worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. Is an underused (at midday), 63-spot parking lot the new...

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...

Update: Seattle City Council members Nick Licata and Kshama Sawant have proposed replacing the sales tax funding in Mayor Murray’s plan to reverse bus cuts with an employee head tax and expansion of the city’s commercial parking tax. Also, transit advocates who filed an initiative to buy back bus service with a property tax increase officially suspended that campaign this week, citing the city’s action and the “more progressive” alternative...

Word is that a crude oil-bearing train derailed in downtown Lynchburg, Virginia and caught fire. Photos and preliminary coverage here. Additional coverage here. There’s particularly good coverage on Huffington Post, here, and at the Roanoke Times, here: A CSX train carrying crude oil derailed Wednesday afternoon by the James River in downtown Lynchburg, sparking a massive fire that sent a thick column of black smoke high into the sky. Officials said...

The Pollution Control Hearings Board—the legal body presiding over state environmental regulations—has upheld the stormwater permits governing Western Washington cities and counties. The decision was issued this spring by the three-person board after permittees challenged the rules. The state Department of Ecology in August last year approved the municipal stormwater permits, which aim to clean up and control polluted runoff that fouls Puget Sound and local lakes, rivers, and streams. The...

Jennifer The adaptation of Michael Lewis’ new book Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt in the New York Times Magazine this week bodes well for the entire book. Here’s just one observation, about a Canadian’s first experience working on Wall Street: “Everything was to excess…. I met more offensive people in a year than I had in my whole life.” To put that in perspective, scroll through these pictures from...

Remember the Puget Sound stormwater permits? Washington state was ready at last to get serious about cleaning up polluted runoff through the use of rain gardens, permeable pavement, and other green strategies. The new rules went into effect in August, but were socked with a downpour of legal challenges. So while cities and counties are working to meet the new regulations, a mist of uncertainty hangs over the process. But...