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 (This post is part of a series.) A while back, the Seattle city government decided that it wanted to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct—the seismically vulnerable aerial highway that cuts off the city’s downtown from its waterfront—with a tunnel. But what neither the city, nor anyone else, has decided is how to pay for the tunnel, which the state estimates could cost more than $4 billion. So far, the city...

A terrific piece of journalism today in a small town paper, the Hood River News. It’s a close look at the economic impacts of this season’s anemic snowfall, a subject we’ve been following this winter. The article puts some hard numbers to the story of shuttered ski areas in Hood River County, Oregon. Here’s a look at Mt. Hood Meadows Ski Resort (which is just one of many struggling ski...

My apologies in advance: this post will probably only interest readers who live in Cascadia’s most populous county; or who are fascinated by the details of transportation funding. The Nov. 2 ballot in King County, Washington, where I live, includes a rather peculiar item that many people have asked me about: an advisory measure on transportation. It’s advisory because it’s just a poll. It doesn’t change any laws, appropriate any...

This piece by John Tierney in the New York Times Magazine is wrong in many ways, so it’s probably important to point out what’s right about it. To summarize the article (we read, so you don’t have to!): Cars are great, high-tech roads are cool, people who don’t like new roads are condescending nanny-statists who oppose consumer choice, public transit is too expensive, and the only real solutions to traffic...

 (This post is part of a series.) Last night, I spoke briefly at a lively public debate about the future of the Alaskan Way Viaduct, the elevated highway hugging the Seattle waterfront through downtown. Constructed in the early 1950s, the Viaduct is aging and considered seismically unsound, and is slated for replacement. The Washington Department of Transportation is looking at several alternatives for replacing the facility, including a tunnel, a...

One of the reasons that SUVs are still selling well—even at time of record crude oil prices—is that people believe that the mammoth vehicles are safer than smaller ones. But that belief, though widely held, is simply wrong. For years, studies of automotive fatalities have found that SUVs are no safer for their passengers than are midsized cars. SUVs may get the better of a head-on collision with a smaller...

Eric Pryne had more on electronic mileage charges for vehicles, as a substitute for gas taxes, in yesterday’s Seattle Times. The fundamental forces behind this trend-advances in engine and information technology-will ultimately transform how Cascadians pay to drive, as we’ve been pointing out since 1996. The ultimate potential of this shift is a set of related breakthroughs: pay-as-you-drive insurance, congestion pricing, pay-as-you-drive vehicle registration and taxes, and pollution taxes. Together,...

Pay-as-you-drive auto insurance (PAYD) is among the most promising innovations for resolving the transportation problems that plague the Northwest. It also makes sense actuarially. But although consumer interest in PAYD is high, insurance companies-who are understandably a little risk-averse-have been slow to give it a try. On that front, here’s a promising step: GMAC and OnStar-a satellite navigation system installed in many GM cars-have teamed up to offer mileage-based insurance...

“If you want people to consume something less, the simplest thing to do is price it more dearly.” Thus goes the argument for higher gasoline taxes, articulated by none other than General Motors’ chairman and chief executive G. Richard Wagoner Jr.. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise: for years automakers have expressed quiet support for higher gas taxes, mostly as a replacement for the fuel economy regulations (known...