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Clark: A new solution to the quintessential Northwest dilemma: biking vs. skiing. Now there’s no need to choose! Alan: What would transit PSAs look like if they were produced by the same people who make trailers for Hollywood action films? Here’s what. Then, a town in the Netherlands brags, on a road sign, that it is FREE OF TRAFFIC SIGNS. What is that all about? A delightful essay called “Anarchist...

My husband and I think we’ve found a way to pay off our mortgage early, without taking on an extra job or working nights. We’ve decided to construct a rental unit—a “mother-in-law suite”—within our home. If it pans out as we hope, the rental income will let us pay off our loan 10 years early. And who knows: it could give us a chance to live closer to family as...

My Year of Nothing New experiment has not only altered my relationship with stuff, it’s opened my eyes to all kinds of people—and whole movements—dedicated to simplifying their lives and breaking out of joyless consumerist mindsets. Recently, I found out about Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus—a.k.a. The Minimalists. They blog about living with less and being happier for it. At the moment, they’re at the tail end of their “Holiday...

This is great: the redoubtable Joel Connelly, over at the Seattle P-I, is on the case. Take a look at his story: Seattle PR firms are doing “coal’s dirty work.” If ever an industry needed good PR, it’s coal. The industry can’t hope to promote its own coal export schemes in the Northwest so instead it buys support from local consulting and PR firms willing to do coal’s dirty work. By...

From a Willamette Live article, this chart virtually speaks for itself: According to the article, the blue bars represents the combined traffic on two different bridges crossing the Willamette River in Salem, OR. The data shows that traffic across the river has essentially flatlined for the last decade; there’s simply no evidence of growth. If anything, the numbers show a very slight decline, given that traffic reached a ten-year low in...

Anna: I was delighted by this modern-day take on the classic children’s book, Goodnight Moon. Goodnight, alpha parents, everywhere! (Yes, admittedly, it speaks to me on so many levels.) Also from the New Yorker, a sturdy argument for a carbon tax replacing the payroll tax by Hendrik Hertzberg. Finally, a friendly reminder (from pollsters themselves) that public opinion polling can never be a perfect measure of attitudes, in part because...

I’ve been a bit of a broken record about the fact that car traffic has been flat or declining in the Pacific Northwest. But it’s more than a Cascadian phenomenon. Gordon Price’s Price Tags blog spotlights this gem of a chart showing roughtly flat traffic trends (in black) and traffic growth forecasts (in various colors), put together by transportation researcher Phil Goodwin. Looks familiar, eh what?

They may not be for you, but rooming houses and other small, basic dwellings should not be against the law. Some people want them — need them, in fact — and they provide housing affordably, with a tiny ecological footprint, and in walkable neighborhoods. Yet across most of the metropolitan Northwest, these basic homes are currently forbidden or rendered unprofitable by local codes. My last article recounted how we arrived...

November is American Indian & Alaska Native Heritage Month, and that makes a good opportunity to take a quick look at the Northwest’s original residents. In North American terms, Cascadia is home to an unusually high concentration of people of Native descent. In fact, Northwest jurisdictions are home to more than three quarters of a million people of Native descent with nearly 200,000 in British Columbia and Washington each. As...

Update: Outgoing governor Chris Gregoire this morning announced a $3.3 million budget recommendation and signed an executive order to begin funding ocean acidification research and other initiatives outlined in her blue ribbon panel’s report. The money would create an ocean acidification research center at the University of Washington, help shellfish hatcheries forecast when lethal water is headed their way, and allow the state to begin teasing apart how much of...