Cascadia Prospectus

And.....Was Moses Really The Devil?

In Crosscut this morning, Knute Berger channels the spirit of famed urban planner, writer and neighborhood preservationist Jane Jacobs - and sits down with Seattle City Council member Tim Burgess to talk tunnel.

They're mulling Seattle mayoral candidate Mike McGinn's call for ditching the planned deep-bore tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct on State Route 99 in downtown Seattle. Berger's hook is two-fold. First, Seattle is having its own Jane Jacobs moment in the candidacy of tunnel opponent McGinn, who favors a "surface street" option instead. Second, there's a new book out by Anthony Flint titled, "Wresting With Moses," on Jacobs' battles against the epic, 20th Century infrastructure builder of New York, Robert Moses (pictured, right).

Cast as the genius-villain writ large in Robert Caro's landmark, 1974 Pulitzer-winning biography "The Power Broker," Moses is just the kind of guy who like Seattle leaders in 1950 would have supported a noisy, fume-spewing, shadow-casting elevated highway such as our viaduct, and who if transported to 2009, probably would have been all for building the world's largest diameter single-deep-bored tunnel to replace it. Or a grand bridge across Elliott Bay, instead. The stage set thusly, Berger in his interview draws some astute observations from Council Member Burgess, himself a great fan of Jacobs' neighborhoods-first activism and scholarship.

...Burgess...says that reading the (Flint) book made him more certain that the deep-bore tunnel was the better option for the waterfront. That seems counter-intuitive, because Jacobs fought against highways. Doesn't a multi-billion-dollar road project seem more like a Moses boondoggle? Doesn't the surface option, which would limit vehicle traffic, sound like more like a Jacobs kind of solution? But Burgess worries that the surface option will be destructive at the street level, especially to the businesses that rely on Highway 99 and waterfront access.

Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation under George W. Bush, Mary Peters recently told the Austin-San Antonio Corridor Growth Summit that the country needs to move toward a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to replace the failing gas tax. At the same time, a new survey conducted by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University shows drivers warming to a mileage tax if lower emission vehicles get discounted rates. At issue is how to pay for maintenance and expansion of roads and transit systems after 40 years of vast growth in system use, and looking toward a tricky double-whammy. More population and jobs in coming decades will strain metro-region surface transportation systems, while flattening per-capita miles driven and greater fuel efficiency are curtailing growth in the per-gallon gas tax revenues that have traditionally been the prime source for surface transportation funding.

Broad implementation of the mileage tax is at least 10 years off, maybe 15. In the nearer term, variable-rate, electronically tolled express lanes are needed aside free lanes on major metro region highways, along with expanded opportunities for public private partnerships and other local and regional funding tools. Eventually, the mileage tax could be levied for travel on arterial and feeder roads, plus highways, with discounts for less congested routes, and possibly, lower emission vehicles. Incentives such as pay-per mile car insurance and meter-less, ticket-less parking could help compensate for privacy concerns. With a slew of VMT pilot projects, technical studies and surveys completed and more underway or coming, this bold policy initiative continues to gain momentum. Here's the San Antonio Express-News on Peter's remarks:

Using a robustly-researched, fine-tuned "telework savings calculator" developed by the Telework Research Network, Seattle Times workplace blogger Michelle Goodman highlighted what this region's employers and workers could save in various costs and gain in improved productivity if the 40 percent of regular, salaried non-government office workers who could work from home, but don't, did -- just half the time.

The upshot: There are billions of dollars in potential benefits from telework being left on the table in the Seattle region alone.

Kate Lister (pictured at right), co-author of "Undress For Success - The Naked Truth About Making Money At Home" and principal researcher of Telework Research Network, shared with me today her latest data about the robust national impact of 40 percent of the regular, full-time, non-government, in-office workforce working at home half the time. Maybe your company would like a piece of this action.

Cascadia Center's TransTech Energy conference began this morning at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. Co-sponsors include Microsoft, Clean Cities, Ford, Idaho National Laboratory and the University of Washington. This is the sixth conference focusing on the combination of transportation, technology and energy. Three years ago, Cascadia Center hosted a pioneering session to examine the potential of plug-in electric vehicles, and the conferences have continued to grow in scope and influence.

This morning, Clean Cities is hosting panels with biofuel and electricity experts to discuss the future of local, sustainable alternative fuel in our region in the context of a "100 Mile Fuel Diet." Before noon, there will be a certification presentation for the Evergreen Fleets Certification and the announcement of a $15 million petroleum reduction grant. Sessions later today and tomorrow morning will cover upcoming legislation and the potential impact to fleets in Washington State, a discussion of the Sustainable Communities Initiative, and a look at the future of mobility hubs.

Click here to see the release announcing the conference.

(Left to right) Standing in front of the first all-electric Ford Focus in the Northwest, Ford's Mike Tinskey and John Viera talk to U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.). All three were conference speakers. Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute

The second (and final) day of Cascadia Center's sixth annual "Beyond Oil" conference is now in full swing. Conference attendees just finished listening to Spyros Sakellariadis, director of Microsoft's Enterprise Strategy Team, and Kush Parikh, vice president at Inrix. They opened today's first session -- "Making Transportation Smart: Software, Connections and Information." Attendees are now hearing from Set America Free's Anne Korin, who is discussing the public policy imperatives for moving beyond oil in transportation -- especially from a national security perspective.

Yesterday's sessions were very well attended and covered a lot of ground: policy, technological developments and grant awards for the integration of technologies that'll electrify transportation. As those of you who were there will attest, there wasn't an empty seat in the house at Microsoft's Executive Conference Center on Friday. If you haven't had the chance to attend this year's session (and even if you have), Seattle's King 5 story about the conference gives a good snapshot of some of the issues at stake.

Some of the many electric vehicles on display at "Beyond Oil." From left to right, the Ford Focus, RAV 4 and Tesla Roadster. Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels at Saturday's signing ceremony.
Source: Washington State Department of Transportation

On Saturday, with a signed memorandum of agreement between Governor Christine Gregoire and Mayor Greg Nickels, Washington and Seattle formalized their partnership for removing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. As described by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the seven-page agreement "outlines the city and state's construction and funding responsibilities to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the proposed bored tunnel." Last week, Seattle's City Council voted unanimously on a measure to endorse the tunnel and, according to WSDOT, which "authorized the execution of the agreement."

The Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged by an earthquake in 2001. WSDOT recently released a video (see below) that "simulates what would happen to the Alaskan Way Viaduct and Seawall if another seismic event more intense than the 2001 Nisqually earthquake were to shake the Puget Sound region."

Alaskan Way Viaduct - Earthquake Simulation, Washington State Department of Transportation

Clean Cities program manager Stephanie Meyn looks on as U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.) presents a $15 million grant award to the Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition. Photos by Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute

Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute's sixth annual "Beyond Oil" conference concluded on Saturday, Oct. 24. Once again, thanks to a strong group of co-sponsors, policy, business and civic leaders were able to gather at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Wash., for smart, forward-looking discussions and presentations about the next stage of electrifying transportation and how the Northwest is poised to help lead that transition.

It's a familiar Washington scenario: a major new federal grant program is launched and soon a brand new constituency is born with an army of supplicants and lobbyists eager to secure a piece of the action. The Administration's high speed rail initiative has been no exception. It has spawned a large and enthusiastic following. Two regional coalitions -- the Midwest High Speed Rail Coalition (IL, WI, IO, MN, MS, MI,IN, OH) and the Western High-Speed Rail Alliance (AZ, CO, NV, UT)-- have entered the competition, supported by the umbrella States for Passenger Rail Coalition headed by Frank Busalacchi, Secretary of Wisconsin DOT. Also in the running are several statewide rail corridors including California, the sole state with a tangible high-speed rail project, having secured voters' approval for a $10 billion bond measure. Cheering on the sidelines is the newly formed One Rail Coalition which includes many of the established rail-oriented lobbies such as the Associations of American Railroads (AAR), the National Association of Railroad Passengers (NARP), the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) and the Railway Supply Institute.

Other members of the new constituency include foreign high-speed rail operators and equipment manufacturers; the domestic engineering and construction industries which are eyeing the program as a potential source of hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts; the green lobby; and just plain old railroad enthusiasts. They were all in evidence at the September 22-23 conference of the U.S. High Speed Rail Association-- a new membership organization established specifically to "advocate, educate and support the development of a state-of-the-art national high speed rail network across America."

What brought these disparate interests together was the lure of big money.