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I’m old enough to remember the episode of The Simpsons when Homer Simpson, after 22 minutes of serial idiocy, wraps up the show by proudly declaring: “Marge, my friend, I haven’t learned a thing.” Well, it seems that BC’s transportation officials are now treating The Simpsons as an instruction manual. As I pointed out a few months back, British Columbia’s transportation planners have long been nursing a delusion that traffic across...

Pam Are young people different than salmon? No, says Jourdan Imani Keith of the Urban Wilderness Project in this beautifully-written essay. Serena Seventeen minutes. That’s the amount of time that passed between when the Wall Street Journal tweeted the breaking new about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death Sunday and the time they posted a verified story about it—and still, this is possibly before the actor’s own family was informed of the...

Apparently, several unions in Vancouver, BC support a proposal to export more US coal to Asia. Which may strike some folks as odd, because coal companies in the Western US have been so deeply unsupportive of unions. The coal that would be shipped out of southwestern BC would likely come from mines in the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming—a place where coal companies have gradually squeezed unions out of...

Serena SEA 55, DEN 14. Here’s a fun factoid from the Seattle Office of Sustainability and Environment. Seattle currently recycles over 55% of its trash. Denver? Only 14%. Because, you know, some fans talk trash. Others recycle it. #GoHAWKS Eric I told you this would happen. This week, Amtrak passengers were stuck on the tracks north of Bellingham because of a disabled coal train. Meanwhile, Amtrak’s Chicago-to-Seattle service is being...

They’re out! The cool kids over at Walk Score just posted their all-new 2014 Transit Score rankings with data on transit service in more than 200 cities across the US. And in good news for the Northwest, Seattle’s Transit Score ranks 7th among all large cities, trailing only New York, San Francisco, Boston, DC, Philly, and Chicago. Portland, meanwhile, ranks 10th. (Note that Transit Scores only rank transit within city limits, and don’t cover suburbs or...

Jeanette A concise summary on why we need a new measure of progress to take the place of GDP. Eric Obviously, the only thing anyone cares about is Richard Sherman. Can an excited 25-year-old Seahawks player become a proxy for our national anxieties about race, violence, and sportsmanship? Why, yes he can. I highly recommend reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ two forays into the subject, here and here. How bad is coal? Bad....

Nicole Seattle artist Andrew Waits’ project Boondock is a photographic narrative of Americans who have turned the traditional concept of home on its head and, for reasons ranging from the economic collapse to sustainability, are living out of vehicles. Most images are accompanied by an audio piece and short narrative. I found it beautiful, interesting, and humane. Clark The New York Times’ Sunday Book Review likes The Happy City, by...

New research released today by Latino Decisions and the Latino Policy Coalition finds that Latino voters oppose new efforts to export US coal to China and Asia from the West Coast. As Matt Barreto, co-founder of Latino Decisions and Associate Professor of Political Science and adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Washington reports, a clear majority of Latino voters rejects plans underway to expand coal exports through western...

The US Department of Energy just released new figures in its latest coal export report. Here’s what happened up through September 2013: Nationally, coal exports continued to tail off. Still, the US shipped nearly 28.6 million tons of coal in the third quarter of 2013. It’s a lot by historical standards. The Western Customs Region, center stage in the ferocious debate over expansion capacity, is currently only a minor player...

Reuters is reporting that an oil train derailed in Alabama earlier today resulting in a huge explosion that sent flames 300 feet into the sky. No injuries are reported so far. Early accounts say that 20 cars derailed and 11 were still on fire as of 3 pm Eastern time. Oil train fires can be so dangerous that emergency responders are often unable to extinguish the blazes. Earlier this year,...