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On climate, jobs, fairness, and the other dimensions of sustainability, three dates in the next six months are key. Decisions made on these days will determine the pace of progress across a broad array of issues in Cascadia. November 6, 2012 One is obvious:, the US general election. At the federal, state, and local levels, much is at stake, and if you’re the kind of person who is reading my...

Great news on the phone book front: Washington officials are proposing new rules that would end the state’s absurd mandatory delivery of white pages listings. Even better, the state is proposing an “opt-in” system—meaning you won’t be saddled with a white pages book unless you ask for one—which is the least wasteful, least costly, and least annoying way to handle things. It’s a rule change that would be consistent with...

Our most recent report highlighted an encouraging trend: northwesterners are using less gasoline. In all, motor fuel consumption in Washington and Oregon declined by about 4.5 percent after cresting in 2002. With population growth, that translates into a 16 percent decline in per capita fuel consumption. When many people hear this news, they immediately think of one thing: the Prius. Surely, they think, the increased sales of hybrids, high-efficiency vehicles,...

Here’s a blast from the past: WSDOT’S early forecasts, dating from 2002, for SR-520 traffic after tolling was scheduled to start. Depending on the tolling scenario, they predicted that the floating bridge would carry between 90,000 and 98,000 cars per day in the first year of tolling, down from a baseline of 118,000 cars per day with no tolling. (The report isn’t available online, so click for the full-sized scanned...

Eric dP: If by chance you’re disgusted by the mendacity on display at the Republican convention, take a moment of bipartisanship to be appalled by this radio ad Obama is running in Ohio. Yep, Obama is running on an aggressively pro-coal and (apparently) pro-fracking platform. He even goes so far as to attack then-governor Mitt Romney for correctly saying that pollution from coal plants kills people. I especially love that...

Most of us are familiar with park-and-ride facilities: large parking lots surrounding transit stops. They generally expand the effective “reach” of a transit stop by allowing people to combine automobiles and transit in a single trip. Yet they also have several disadvantages, including negative visual impacts, forgone revenue from other uses of the space, and the cost of the facilities themselves. There is a better way. In contrast to park-and-rides,...

Zipcar. Car2Go. Getaround. Modo. Throughout the Northwest, car-sharing services are taking off. Residents in major Northwest cities who are looking to live a “car-lite” lifestyle—but who still need to get behind the wheel from time to time—now have a number of options for shared vehicles. Car-sharing services offer abundant, convenient vehicle options, distributed widely around major metro regions—so that drivers have easy access to cars when they need them, without...

Since the first Babes on Bikes post, Audrey and I have gone on a couple longer rides together and despite some wobbles here and there I’m really getting the hang of it. We had a blast riding from Montlake to the Ballard farmers’ market on the Burke Gilman trail, rolling past hundreds of women half-marathon runners (Audrey thought everyone on the sidelines was cheering for us.) Also since the first...

I’m quite partial to lobster. And my husband is from Maine, so every couple years when we head east to visit friends and family, I get to go on a lobster binge. Legend has it that during one week-long stay I tucked away at least a dozen lobster rolls. Exaggeration or not, you can imagine my delight in learning that the price of lobster has hit rock bottom this season...

A little while back, we took a look at commuting in Seattle vs. Portland—and found, perhaps unexpectedly, that Seattle had a heck of a lot more transit commuting than Portland. But that comparison only looked within city limits. So what about the metro areas as a whole–and transit for all trips, not just trips to work?? The National Transit Database offers some clues…and as it turns out, the Portland metro area...