The Porous Road Less Traveled
Permeable pavement can make old-school road engineers and pavement builders anxious. To them, the idea of water seeping through roads like they’re made of Swiss cheese just doesn’t seem right. ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Looking Back, Moving Forward
Sightline had another big year in 2011. Here are a few of the things we did that made us proud: Coal Exports: Just as Washington State makes the healthy move ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Will Federal Tax Policy Favor Car Commuting?
If you have commuting costs for parking, transit, or biking, you could be eligible for a federal tax subsidy. The IRS allows companies or employees to contribute up to $230 per commuter for monthly parking or transit commuting costs, a benefit that some 3 million people nationwide take advantage of. For the last two years, the pre-tax limits have been the same for parking and transit. But it wasn't always that way: for years, the IRS allowed much higher pre-tax payments for parking, giving transit riders short shrift. It wasn't until 2009 that Congress brought transit commuting up to parity with parking. Yet that change was temporary. As The New York Times points out, the parity provisions expire in 2012---so unless Congress acts soon, the policy will revert to subsidizing parking over transit. Drivers will be able to set aside up to $240 per month in pre-tax dollars for parking costs, while pre-tax setasides for transit costs will fall to $125 per month.
Author: SwatchJunkies
Weekend Reading 12/2/11
Clark: Now this is a true catastrophe: a craft brewer is worried that climate change is making beer more expensive! Gahh! Valuable tips for the holidays: 4 ways to hack your brain to ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
A Call to Waterlogged Northwesterners
Stormwater has been kicking the Northwest’s butt. Armed with back-to-back deluges, the region’s polluted runoff has shown no mercy. For weeks it has soaked us to our socks with deceptively ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Weekend Reading 11/11/11
Eric dP: It was with a sort of grim satisfaction that I read the Washington Post’s excellent feature, “Wall Street’s resurgence frustrates its claims, and Obama’s.” It’s a close look ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Farm Workers and Pesticides in Northwest Orchards
Editor’s note: This post was written by John Abbotts, a former Sightline research consultant and a long-time friend of Sightline. It’s been almost 50 years since Rachel Carson published Silent ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Weekend Reading 10/21/11
Eric dP: Probably the best thing I read this week was Elisabeth Rosenthal’s Sunday NYT piece about what ever happened to global warming as a live political issue. I like ...
Author: SwatchJunkies
Do Vehicle License Fees Make Driving Unaffordable?
Do vehicle license fees harm the poor? Even if car fees actually are regressive---and I think the answer is far from clear---it's wrong-headed to think that voting down a fee will somehow make driving affordable. Even a cursory look at history shows turning driving into a necessity is what really harms the poor. In the early part of 2005, a driver in Seattle could fill up at less than $2 per gallon, but by 2011 that same driver was paying twice as much at the pump. Given typical driving habits, fuel prices alone added more than $1,000 to the annual cost of operating a car since 2005. In other words, world oil prices tacked on the equivalent of 18 of Seattle's proposed vehicle license fees.
Author: SwatchJunkies
Portland, the City of Sedums?
The City of Roses is being transformed into the City of Sedums as nearly 300 Portland rooftops are now blanketed in the drought-tolerant succulents. And as rooftops in Oregon are ...
