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Over at Crosscut, an otherwise interesting article by Peter Lewis on travel to Seattle’s airport is blemished by this bizarre claim: A check of Metro Transit’s bus service to Sea-Tac shows fares at less than $3 from central Seattle, but those routes generally involve transfers and take an hour or more. Well, not exactly. From downtown Seattle, the bus is by far the cheapest option to SeaTac. And it’s nearly...

Here’s an interesting ranking. For each major US city, the list-happy editors at Men’s Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and driving miles. (Presumably, the data are for metropolitan areas, not city limits.) Northwest cities do exceptionally well: Seattle ranks number one, Portland ranks third, and Spokane is eighth. Men’s Health doesn’t appear to include a methodology on the web, but I’ll take a...

This isn’t the sort of thing I blog about regularly, but it strikes me that this New York Timesarticle on suicide, of all things, has an important lesson about how our physical environments can shape our behavior. According to the article, large numbers of “impulse” suicide attempts—the ones that are undertaken with little premeditation—could be prevented simply by making the most common means of taking one’s life a little less...

I’ve been lazy. Today was the first day this year that I’ve ridden my bike to the office.* After what was nearly a nine-month hiatus, it was interesting to observe things with fresh eyes. Here’s what I realized: Riding to work is awesome. Why don’t I do it every day? There are a ton of people biking these days. I doubt it’s the weather. Could it be gas prices? Or the more-crowded buses?...

Do not try this at home—it’s illegal, and possibly dangerous. Still, on the eve of bike-to-work day, it’s worth remembering that bikes are often just as speedy as cars—even on a freeway.  It certainly was for these daredevils. But even if you’re not an adrenaline junkie, bike travel can be a time saver.  First of all, consider the health benefits.  According to one medical researcher in Britain, accident risks of...

If you live in Seattle, chances are that you like to complain. You might like to complain about parking or you might also like to complain about ugly new development. (Or, like me, you might like to complain about all the complainers.) So today, all of us Seatteites were happy to see the Seattle Times devote an article to people complaining about the new townhouses sprouting up. There are about as...

We’ve gotten a few questions already about how we came up with our charts on the climate-warming impacts of travel choices.  The charts compare the global warming impacts of cars, SUVs, vanpools, planes, buses, and trains.  And since I couldn’t find a single, unified data source for all of that—at least, not one that I couldn’t poke some holes in—I compiled our figure from scratch, using a bunch of different sources....

Here’s one for your required reading stack: The Benefits of Bicycling (pdf), a new report from Cascade Bicycle Club. It’s an enjoyable eleven pages on the ways that bicycling helps address climate change, even while it saves money and boosts our health. The paper doesn’t contain new primary research, but it’s a nicely readable summary of the best thinking in favor of two-wheeled transport. (Plus, it’s chock full of charts...

While we’re on the subject of overlooked academic studies, here’s another goodie (pdf link): an analysis of whether cars pay their own way. The basic question: do taxes paid by drivers equal public spending to support driving? The short answer: Nope! In fact, we’d have to raise gas taxes by somewhere between 20 to 70 cents per gallon for driving to pay for itself. I’d recommend reading the study itself...

What bicycle-respecting streets, intersections, and neighborhoods look like is largely a mystery to most Cascadians, even those who cycle regularly. I’ve offered descriptions twicebefore. Since then, two wonderful new tools have been completed. StreetFilms.org, the awesome, New York-based outfit that makes movies about cycling, has posted a 30-minute ode to Portland’s bikability (linked above). It makes Bicycle Respect visible. (Other, shorter StreetFilms works on Portland are collected here, but most...