Daily Score Blog

(This post is part of a series.)

Apropos of this post, it looks like the Seattle city council has authorized a look at using transit and street grid improvements to replace the waterfront Alaskan Way Viaduct through downtown.

Press release excerpts follow:

What would it take to get me out of my car?

I mean that as a serious question, not a rhetorical one.  Unique among my colleagues, I’m a car commuter. Well, really, I carpool. My wife and I both work in downtown Seattle, and we’ve chosen to put our two daughters in a daycare that’s close to our offices.  So, even though bus commuting is definitely an option in my neighborhood -- it's what we did before we had kids -- we've become pretty habituated to commuting by car.

I’m under no illusion that carpooling makes our commute benign. Each year, the family commute adds more than a ton and a half of climate-warming CO2 emissions to the atmosphere.  It also pollutes the region’s air with carbon monoxide and smog-forming compounds; congests the streets, increasing the public pressure for new highways; imposes extra crash risk on ourselves, as well as the people who share the roads with us; and saps hundreds of dollars a year from our family budget to pay for oil imports.

So Alan’s experiment in car-free living, plus the realization that downtown Seattle will probably need a major transit boost in the coming years, has gotten me wondering:  what would it take to coax our family onto the bus?

Even though we like to think of ourselves as environmentally conscious, our family's decision will probably come down to three basic factors:  time, money, and convenience.

First, let’s talk about the money.

In today's edition of TIDEPOOL:

Today's top story highlights some good news from Montana: Logging companies and environmental organizations announce a compromise land-use plan for 3.3 million acres of national forest.

And an article that will interest British Columbians: Native Vancouver Islander Patrick Moore has risen to new heights. Moore, a founder of Greenpeace and, more recently, the scourge of many forest activists, is now partnering with ex-EPA head Christine Todd Whitman to lead a PR campaign for the nuclear energy industry. The announcement comes with the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident. Perhaps not the best timing? You'd think such seasoned flacks would know better.

Other news from Canada for those interested in sprawl and urban planning: Jane Jacobs, author of the influential book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, has died at the age of 89 in Toronto. The Nation recently ran a thoughtful essay by Rebecca Solnit on the legacies of Jacobs, Rachel Carson and Betty Friedan. I highly recommend it.

And more on the front page of Tidepool: Celebrate grassroots environmental heroes. Meet an evangelical organic farmer who preaches that industrial agriculture is a sin. And find out why old folks will revolutionize public transit and urban density.

PS: You career do-gooders might appreciate this commentary on economic security from the LA Times: Maude, Meet Harold.

Always more than enough news to fill up your cubicle hours at Tidepool. Drop me a note at editor@tidepool.org.