The Northwest is a great place to live, but --as Sightline's 2007 Scorecard shows--we’re facing many complex, connected threats to our quality of life, including rising energy prices, sprawl and traffic congestion, and global warming. When it comes to solutions for these challenges, it makes sense to focus on solving several problems at once.

That’s why Sightline emphasizes “ripple-effect” solutions: simple changes that create reinforcing benefits in many parts of our lives. For example, encouraging compact, walkable communities in our cities reduces air pollution, helps combat global warming, and promotes health through exercise and reduced risk of car crashes.

The region currently faces a host of upcoming challenges where “ripple-effect” solutions can create a better future for the Northwest. Here are a few examples of how we can make good choices that have far-reaching benefits.

TRANSPORTATION AND QUALITY OF LIFE

Cascadia’s voters will face contentious debates over road construction in the coming months, including Vancouver, BC’s, Gateway Program for new road construction and this November’s multi-billion dollar highway funding vote in Puget Sound. These decisions have the potential to reshape the landscape for decades to come, and to limit our future choices by locking us into car-centered transportation.

Seattle voters have already taken the first step towards what may be a more sensible approach to transportation choices. By rejecting both a tunnel and an elevated highway to replace the aging Alaskan Way Viaduct, voters may have opened doors for a “streets and transit” solution that could benefit quality of life in several ways:

• Helping curb climate-warming emissions by looking to an alternative to a car-dependent transportation system;
• improving health by making it easier and safer to walk and bike in our neighborhoods;
• reducing construction costs and years of construction mess; and
• fostering compact downtown development that protects our cherished farmland and forests from sprawl on the urban fringe.

Each decision isn’t just a drop in the bucket; each good choice has a ripple effect. Smart transportation choices can benefit us by saving money, improving health, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions all at the same time. Other transportation solutions with compounding benefits include:

• Investing in sidewalks and bike paths – which could increase safety and health, encourage alternatives to cars, and help reduce air pollution.
• Easing parking requirements —which benefits businesses and builders in the city center, taking development pressure off the urban fringe and making destinations more walkable.
• Congestion pricing can reduce traffic (and the not-so quality time spent there) while allowing goods to move more freely during alternative hours.

HEALTH AND ECONOMIC SECURITY

Health insurance not only helps keeps us healthy, it can also keep families economically secure by reducing the chance that expensive medical treatments or emergencies will force families into poverty. While British Columbia has long provided health care to all residents regardless of income, as many as one in seven residents of the Northwest states has no health insurance at all.

Earlier this year, Washington passed landmark legislation extending health care coverage to low-income children—a plan that boosts the well-being of some of the state’s most vulnerable residents in several ways including regular check-ups for kids and protection for families from the economic ruin sometimes caused by medical emergencies.

Other ways we can improve health and security are:

• Proving safety before introducing new chemicals can protect us from the health effects of toxic chemicals and avoids the burdens of clean-up and health care costs from chemicals proven to be harmful after years of use.
• Ensuring that that every child is born wanted by making sure insurance covers birth control, as Oregon did recently. Children conceived intentionally receive better prenatal care and have lower infant mortality rates. Preventing unintended pregnancies can also help alleviate poverty.
• Accurately and regularly measuring economic security is a crucial first step toward improving the prospects of middle- and lower-income families, and would help us evaluate the effectiveness of policies already in place.

Banning toxic flame retardants called PBDEs, as Washington State has done this year, is an example of how, in one step, we safeguarded infant health and development, helped keep mothers’ breast milk pure and untainted, and shielded marine wildlife, such as the highly contaminated orcas, from toxic threats.

Find out more about ripple-effect solutions that make sense for our region here.

For materials and advice on specific solutions in the Northwest, contact Sightline at 206-447-1880 x111 or elisa@sightline.org.