Search Results

Even by the weird and hysterical standards of Seattle’s great viaduct debate, something very strange is going on. The weirdness has got to do with what I’ll call the “equity argument” — that our treatment of the viaduct should not discriminate against workers. Good. Fair enough. No doubt most of us agree: voters and policymakers should be attentive to ordinary- and lower-income folks when making decisions. But what’s strange is this: according to the...

Sightline research director Clark Williams-Derry analyzes the Seattle viaduct debate and comes to a few simple conclusions: roads are expensive, rush hour is the worst problem, and the differences between short- and long-term consequences.

Good news! The Rose City has irked the Federal Highway Administration. Why? Because it’s, um, centering its new transportation plan around people instead of roads.   Metro is trying something different with the current plan update—giving the highest priority to projects that support the region’s goals for coping with growth, whether that means more roads, more transit or more bicycle lanes. The response from the FHA:   The highway agency scolded...

(This post is part of a series.) It seems like state and city politicians are still dead set on spending billions of dollars on Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct. (And just to be clear: I was wrong to declare the tunnel dead last week; the governor tried to put a stake in its heart, but city officials resurrected it as a 4-lane “hybrid” tunnel. And so, the saga continues…proving, yet again,...

Here’s a potentially good idea about which I’m rather ambivalent: rules requiring in-city developers to include robust landscaping features such as green roofs and vegetation-covered walls. It’s easy on the eyes, but it may not be smart public policy. To begin with, it’s unclear how much burden Seattle’s cutting-edge new rules would impose; and it’s unclear how much benefit they’d achieve. But if most developers are skeptical—and they are, at...

I just returned from Christmas in a surprisingly balmy Minneapolis where I learned about a neat little tax shifting trick that could be a powerful technique for constraining sprawl. The best part is that it’s actually fairer than the current system. Here’s the scoop. In most places, homeowners pay a simple sewage or drainage rate (it’s often calculated as a percentage of water consumed). Minneapolis decided to break apart the sewage charge into two separate...

Each time I walk to a Flexcar in my neighborhood, I pass scores of parked private cars. I sometimes fantasize about strolling up to one of them, swiping my Flexcard over the dash, and driving away. I’d be debited automatically; my neighbor would be credited, less a slice for Flexcar. And I’d have a vastly larger pool of vehicles at my disposal. This fantasy is less fantastical than it may...

Editor’s note: Guest contributor David Kershner is a land conservation consultant who did research for Sightline’s book Tax Shift. In case you haven’t noticed, environmental tax shifting is receiving national attention, thanks in part to Al Gore. Last month Gore gave a speech at New York University in which he proposed replacing the payroll tax with a carbon tax . Last week Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote that he...

I wish I’d written this: a seven-point prescription for using energy more efficiently. It’s written from the perspective of a Manhattan resident, but the advice makes just as much sense for Cascadia. The author is an economist, and it shows: all of his energy-saving prescriptions are about pricing. There’s no mention of R&D, or emerging technologies, or changing people’s mindsets about energy. Just ideas about how to change the way...

When, oh when, will Eric end this Ahab-like fixation on the takings ballot measures? Don’t hold your breath. Yesterday, Washington’s Office of Financial Management released estimates of the financial impact of Initiative 933. It’s not pretty. Analysts are ballparking the costs to taxpayers at between $7.3 and $9 billion over the next six years. I won’t get into the technical details today—partly because I haven’t studied the analysis carefully yet....