Daily Score Blog

In a Seattle Times op-ed published today, our own Clark Williams-Derry opines on what the great Seattle Clog that Wasn't can teach us about transportation.

A couple of the money paragraphs are posted below. We'd encourage you, though (how could we not) to read the whole thing, comment below, and share with your pals. (Also see Clark's original post "Apocalypse? Nah.")

This lesson — that traffic is more flexible than we think — should teach us something about today's transportation debates. For example, the amount of northbound traffic diverted from I-5 was just about equal to the volumes that enter the Alaskan Way Viaduct every day from south of the West Seattle onramp.

The two cases are not precisely parallel — closing I-5 for a few slow summer weeks is certainly not exactly the same thing as closing the viaduct for good.

Yet the fact that the existing transportation system sufficed to forestall a disaster should give us more confidence that, with modest improvements in transit and traffic flow, the region's commuters can find workable commuting solutions without the massive costs and neighborhood disruption of rebuilding the viaduct.

I don't know about you, but my money is on greater Seattle's commuters. We've proven ourselves to be a crafty bunch — if we can outwit an I-5 lane closure, with a little help I bet we can handle just about anything.

We're taking a break from blogging, probably until Labor Day. Until then, please check out a few of our recent greatest hits.

I Know Why the Caged Nerd Sings (had to include that just for the title!)

Minimum Wage's Minimal Effect

The Nation States of Climate Change

Sorry, Climate, I Had to Clean my Keyboard

This Sunday, I-Sustain, along with regional transportation agencies, is shutting down Seattle's Second Avenue between Cherry and Marion Streets to do a staged photo demonstration--from 6am to 1pm--of alternative transportation vs. cars They're looking for 200 volunteers for the shoot. (That's where you come in. See I-Sustain's website for details or contact Kristie Maxim.)

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels and King Count Exec Ron Sims will be on hand to flex their transportation street cred.

The pictures at left--taken in Scandinavia in the 1970s--tell the story that's expected to be repeated for Puget Sound. As the photos show, it takes 177 cars to move the same amount of people that can fit in a single bike lane, 2 1/2 buses, or a single light rail train.

We're continuing to make improvements to the Climate Pricing 101 page. So if you found it confusing earlier, take another look. It's getting better all the time!

I've also been asked to provide a shorter summary here. So, if you want climate pricing boiled down -- and want to see where Sightline's research is pointing us -- here are a couple of takeaway points:

• Economists generally tend to favor carbon taxes on the grounds that taxes are the most economically efficient way to discourage carbon emissions. There are two big downsides, however: taxes guarantee a price for carbon emissions but not a limit, and it's limiting emissions that's really the goal. The second big problem is that it's a tax; and taxes are politically tough, to say the least.
• Industry -- particularly big historical emitters -- like grandfathered cap and trade because it doesn't cost them anything to obtain allowances to continue emitting carbon. But passing out credits for free confers fungible commodities (the credits) to polluters -- the more pollution, the bigger the payout.
• Sightline's current preference is for cap and auction. Auctioning the permits gives an advantage to clean industries and utilities, and it helps to ensure that the lowest-cost cuts in emissions are made first.
• One of the biggest questions about any carbon limit is fairness. How do we protect consumers and low-income folks from rising prices? How do we smooth the economic transition away from polluting? A source of revenue -- from either taxes or auctioning -- can go a long way toward helping out.

That's a start anyway. As I said yesterday, this stuff gets complicated quickly. But take a look at what we've got and chime in.

A couple of days ago while listening to "Marketplace" on NPR, I was suprised to hear the psychotically cheerful host, Kai Ryssdal, announce an upcoming segment on the difference between a carbon tax and a cap and trade system. I turned up the volume.

What I learned was this: carbon pricing is way too complicated for a short radio segment, even on the relatively cerebral NPR. The only person who seemed to truly understand the issue got quoted with exactly four sentences. And two of them were short.

The truth is, climate pricing ain't simple. But as an attempt to make it at least understandable, Sightline's put together a handy primer that we're calling Climate Pricing 101. We think it's a good first step toward characterizing the big three options in climate pricing: taxes and the two flavors of cap and trade ("grandfathering" and auctioning).

Take a look and let us know what you think. We'd like this to be a helpful resource for understanding the issues without getting buried in the weeds. And I'll admit right up front that the issue quickly gets far more complicated than what we've included in the primer. So if you have remarks about ascending-clock auctions or redistributing RECs for LSEs, hold that thought. That's for the 102 class.

10/31/2007 Update: We have new versions of these transportation charts for each Northwest state in shareable forms.

In the Northwest, it's impossible to address climate change without doing something about transportation. Take a look at this chart showing CO-2 emissions from fossil fuels in Washington.

In Washington (as in Oregon), everything else pales in comparison to the emissions that come from transportation. In fairness, the chart above shows only emission from fossil fuels. But fossil fuels represent better than four-fifths of the state's entire portfolio of greenhouse gas emsisions. They're also the emissions that are best understood, and by far the most practical to cover in carbon legislation, such as cap and trade.

Whether we aim to reduce our climate emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels (the amount that scientists say is necessary in the developed world if we're to slow climate change) or by 50 percent (the target that the state's leaders have proposed), there's pretty much no way to get around making big cuts in transportation emissions.

On a related note, the Western Climate Initiative -- the group of western states and provinces setting a joint climate strategy -- just announced their shared target. I was actually a bit surprised when I saw the numbers.

In the Seattle Times, Danny Westneat hits the nail on the head, making much the same point that Clark made a few days ago about the traffic apocalypse-that-wasn't. Westneat also adds this:

In 1998, British researchers studied what happened to traffic in more than 100 highway and bridge shutdowns in Europe and the U.S. They found that on average 25 percent of all car trips simply evaporated. People still went to work. Some commuters drove, some found another way in. Some other trips were just not made.

It's definitely worth reading the whole piece.

And behind the soon-to-be-history paywall at the New York Times, Thomas Friedman points out that energy efficiency is properly considered a source of energy. We can treat it that way by changing the way utilities operate and other smart features (that Sightline has long advocated for) including things like smart grid and decoupling. This about sums it up:

Mr. Rogers’s proposal is based on three simple principles. The first is that the cheapest way to generate clean, emissions-free power is by improving energy efficiency. Or, as he puts it, “The most environmentally sound, inexpensive and reliable power plant is the one we don’t have to build because we’ve helped our customers save energy.”

I think there's a common theme here. Sometimes the best solutions aren't about doing more with more; they're about doing better by being smart about how we use our current resources.

Much as it pains me, Labor Day is just around the corner. The end of summer will mean the unofficial start of campaign season. And that, of course, means me ranting about property law in Oregon, specifically Measure 49, a ballot initiative that will trim back a few aspects of Measure 37.

But it's still summer, so let's do the fun stuff. The first published poll is out today, and it has Measure 49 ahead by 58 percent to 12 percent among likely voters. Support is a little stronger, but not drastically so, among Democrats and residents of the Portland metro region and of coastal areas. Full results are here (pdf), where you'll find some other interesting tidbits about Oregon politics too.

Now, lest Measure 49 supports start jubilating in the streets, it's worth mentioning that conventional wisdom says that a 58-12 margin before Labor Day really doesn't mean much. That's because ballot initiatives, unlike candidates, tend to start off with high support and then slowly erode until Election Day. Even the pollster, Mike Riley, cautions that 58 percent support is actually kind of soft. Okay, those are the caveats, but there is reason to believe that support for Measure 49 is likely to remain strong.

The US Northwest gets a raw deal when it comes to the economics of driving. We import from outside the region virtually every car we drive, not to mention nearly every gallon of fossil fuel we burn. So, the lion's share of the money we spend on driving goes elsewhere. (Our newly updated energy counter illustrates this point with dramatic flair.)

Interestingly, a new report from a Portland economist makes the same point somewhat differently:

Because Portland-Vancouver drivers log 20 percent fewer miles a day than most U.S. urban dwellers and spend less on cars and gasoline as a result, the region's economy saves $2.6 billion a year, or about 3 percent of the area's annual economic output...

By habit, I'm a bit skeptical of reports like this one that allege huge economic impacts from complicated and interconnected features of an economy. (You see this all the time with economic impact assessments of sports stadiums and so on.) And I should also mention that I haven't chewed through the methodology behind this report. But while I won't vouch for the precise dollar figure, the fundamental insight is surely right:

And most of that money, which otherwise would go to far-flung car makers and oil companies, appears to go instead to housing, entertainment and food in the Portland-area economy.

"It stimulates local businesses rather than rewarding Exxon or Toyota," says the five-page report titled "Portland's Green Dividend"

What's the lesson here? I think it's this: the money we spend to facilitate driving -- whether on roads or "free" parking or what have you -- is just a down payment. The real price is much higher, and we pay it over many decades to support industries in other regions.

Virtually every dollar spent on oil and gas by residents of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho gets siphoned out of the region's economy. We produce little natural gas and absolutely no petroleum. So spending our money on fossil fuels means that there's less for local residents and businesses.

How much money do we spend?

LOTS. $53 million a day. Click below to see the numbers rack up in real time on Sightline's online energy counter.

That’s 4 percent of the Northwest states' entire economic output--money that could have been circulating in our local economy. (Click here to see the full counter.)

You can let other people know about our spending habit by forwarding the counter.

Apparently, Boeing was a bit of a sticking point in the negotiations over Washington's recent ban of the toxic flame retardants known as PBDEs.  In legislative negotions, the ariplane manufacturer won an exemption for one form of PBDE, arguing that there were no safe, effective alternatives for some aviation applications. 

All things considered, that exemption may have made some sense.  The PBDE ban was definitely a good idea; but it's hard to argue that preventing airplane catastrophes is a good idea too.  And it was definitely better to have a ban with a small loophole than no ban at all -- which might have happened, if Boeing hadn't gotten its exemption.

But now, wouldja look at what landed in my inbox: a press release from one of Boeing's suppliers:

We tend to think of traffic as a given, and that the amount of driving we do is simply immutable -- that there's literally nothing we can do in our day-to-day lives to drive less.

But Seattle's continued breezy traffic -- in the midst of a major construction project that some feared would trigger a morass of congestion throughout Puget Sound -- shows that this is simply false. Far from being immutable, traffic and travel patterns are surprisingly fluid. If drivers have travel choices and the right kinds of information and incentives, they can get out of their cars -- or even use alternative surface routes more efficiently.

Expecting a quagmire, and warned off the highways, commuters found alternate ways to get to work -- despite having fewer lanes to drive on. Some drivers got out of their cars, switching to buses, commuter trains, and water taxis. Others stayed off the roads entirely, by telecommuting from home or from temporary workstations set up by far-sighted employers. The end result: despite the reduced highway capacity, traffic's been better than it's been in years.

Of course, this P-I editorial, by the redoubtable Cary Moon and Kamala Rao, makes the point better than I ever could. So I'll just shut up now and recommend that you read it.

(But before you go, the I-5 story has obscured some other interesting traffic news -- Puget Sound just got a big chunk of money from the feds to try out tolling on the Evergreen Point floating bridge. Maybe that'll help get people out of their cars too -- undermining the argument for widening the thing...)

This is my cat, George. He is fat and grouchy, but I love him. He likes to sun himself on the patio.

This is a link to Sightline's research on PBDEs, a toxic flame retardant. A couple of years ago, we conducted a study of PBDEs and found high concentrations in the breast milk of nursing mothers throughout Cascadia. It was bad news.

And what's the connection to George? Well, new scientific research shows that PBDEs are making house cats sick. (Major hat tip here to Lisa Stiffler, ace environmental reporter at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, who covers the story in her blog today.)

From a summary of the study:

PBDE concentrations in blood serum of the 23 house cats participating in the study were 20–100 times higher than the median levels of PBDEs in people living in North America, who have been shown to have the world's highest human PBDE levels.

PBDEs are long-lived. They're found in foam cushions, TVs, computers, carpet pads, curtains, you name it. It's thought that we humans get our exposure to PBDEs through house dust, which often includes crumbled bits of foam and other goodies. Same goes for cats: researchers believe that felines, with their obsessive-compulsive grooming, are literally lapping up the toxic compound. And many cats (George included) eat a lot of fish, which tend to have high concentrations of toxics too.

August 8/24 update: Seattle Times' blog on "the Clog" hasn't been updated for a few days--another sign that it's been relatively smooth sailing on I-5, thanks to Seattle-area commuters' willingness to adapt. (See also our post from last week.)

It's been on every Seattle resident's lips for weeks:  the horrible, terrifying prospect of losing two lanes of I-5, just south of downtown, for 19 consecutive days of major maintenance.  The predictions were as uniform as they were dire:  Gridlock!  Pandemonium!!  Traffic Armageddon!!!! 

I'm barely exaggerating.  Both major papers featured the lane closure in front page, above-the-fold articles.  It was a top story in local TV news.  And every single one of the stories carried the same storyline -- reducing traffic capacity was bound to be a nightmare for commuters.  The Seattle Post-Intelligencer dubbed it "19 days of pain."  The Olympian warned of a "worst-case scenario [with] idling traffic from Seattle to Tacoma."  The Ballard News Tribune declared that the closure would "dramatically affect traffic and divert thousands of vehicles onto city streets."  The Seattle Times even set up a separate blog -- dubbed The Clog -- to track the impending quagmire.

But as anyone who actually drove on that stretch of road would tell you, the predictions weren't just overblown.  They were the exact opposite of what actually happened.  Peak commuting-time traffic wasn't just lighter than expected, it was lighter than at any time in recent memory. 

It was, in the words of one post on The [so-called] Clog, "Maybe the best commute ever."

And I think that this non-event -- a big dog that never barked -- can teach us all a lesson about traffic.

I LOVE this idea:  a single off-switch for your whole house, to power down all of those non-essential appliances that suck electricity while you're at work or out on the town. 

OK, so it's just a concept at this point.  But it's a good one.  I know that my family could make good use of this.  Yeah, sure, we try to be pretty careful about turning off lights, but every so often we leave a light burning in the basement.  And of course, there's always a handful of appliances -- a stereo, a modem -- that suck a bit of power whenever they're plugged in, even when they're off.  (In many homes, the clock on the microwave uses more power than the oven itself.)  But plugging and unplugging all these appliances from the wall is a royal pain, especially since we have kid-safe protectors on all of the outlets.  A universal power-off switch would be a real boon.

Obviously, retrofitting my entire house to take advantage of this sort of switch would probably cost more than the energy I'd save.  But at a minimum, the idea of a whole-house off switch is a good reminder that there's plenty of waste left in the energy system -- suggesting that, in theory at least,  we could cut way back on our power consumption without affecting our lifestyles one whit.