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For more than a decade, all of the eco-friendly stormwater projects that Seattle touched turned to green. The city rebuilt block after neighborhood block to incorporate rain gardens and other natural strategies that can clean up and reduce polluted runoff. The projects worked great: they showcased native plants and sucked up the extra rainwater like green urban sponges. Seattle Public Utilities won awards for its work and was viewed a...

Spring has been reluctant to arrive in the Northwest this year, but the weather is finally changing. With the appearance of some sun, I’ve been itching to get outside. Since writing about my first bike ride in ten years, I’ve bought a bike, and spoken with friends and coworkers more about cycling in Seattle. Already, I’ve got seven days of bike commuting to the office under my belt. It hasn’t...

Researchers have pointed the finger at stormwater runoff as the top source of pollution that’s getting into Puget Sound and other Northwest waterways. And because runoff comes from just about everywhere—roofs, roadways, parking lots, farms, and lawns—the solution has to be just as widespread. Enter 12,000 Rain Gardens. This week Washington State University and Stewardship Partners, a nonprofit working on land preservation, announced a campaign to promote the installing of...

I have a confession to make: I don’t own a bike. (Don’t tell any of my bike-loving coworkers.) Truth is, I hadn’t ridden a bike in over a decade—until last weekend. Six months ago I sold my broken-down, paperweight of a car and have been mooching rides for trips too far outside my neighborhood ever since. With the promise of better weather around the corner, I decided it was finally time...

Editor’s note: This blog is also available as a printer friendly pdf, and a similar version was published this week in Trim Tab, the publication of the Cascadia Green Building Council.  A woman drowns when the basement of her Seattle home suddenly fills with a torrent of filthy water. An overflow of 15 million gallons of sewage and stormwater fouls the shoreline of picturesque Port Angeles, putting the waterfront off limits...

Business interests, greens, government reps, and Washington residents didn’t exactly all sing Kumbaya together at this week’s stormwater forum in Olympia, but the diverse crowd did find some common ground. As John Dodge of the Olympian described it in a great article Thursday, “…everyone attending the forum—including environmentalists and those with business ties—agreed that stormwater runoff is the biggest threat to Puget Sound’s health and will require a lot more money...

Ask people what’s great about Oregon and you’ll get hundreds of answers (from bamboo bikes to the Country Fair to its vote-by-mail system). At Sightline, there’s nothing we love more than policies that remove the niggling obstacles that keep people from making smart, sustainable choices. So here’s an update on a few ideas we’ve been following, and a couple of reasons to love Oregon a little more. This week, the...

A couple months back, I got a smart phone. One of the first things I downloaded was OneBusAway, an app that provides real-time information on transit stops, routes, and arrivals using data provided by King County Metro. Finally, I thought! I’d never again have to wait around for a bus that’s 20 minutes late. I’d know exactly when the next bus would arrive, shrinking my wait time at the stop....

Oregon could become the next state to pave the way for peer-to-peer car sharing companies, which allow people to rent out their personal vehicles when they’re not using them (which is usually more than 90 percent of the time). It’s a common sense and entrepreneurial idea that we’ve championed here at Sightline for a long time. Here’s how it works: Let’s say you need to rent a car for a...

Imagine a time, years ago, when Johnny and Billie Sue could take a break from jumprope, hopscotch, and tree climbing to ride their bikes down to the corner store, sit at the soda fountain, buy shoelaces, and trade comic books. Sounds like an idyllic bygone era doesn’t it? But I’m not that old and I grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I lived it. Even we had a corner store....