Editor's Take: October 19, 2009
Jason McHuff, flickr
It's Electrifying!
Electric cars and bikes are in the news today, with a federal push to create a charging network across the Northwest and new bicycles that offer a boost to pedal power. But one Oregon transit-oriented community suggests old transportation habits are hard to break. There's still time to recommend Sightline Daily and win a trip to Seattle.
Editor's Top Picks
Your editor today is Jennifer Langston | View All Today's News
Feds push electric cars in Puget Sound
Tacoma News Tribune
10/18/2009
A year from now, roughly 1,000 all-electric vehicles will be whispering around the Puget Sound are as part of a federally funded project that eventually might lead to an electric corridor stretching from Eugene, OR, to Vancouver, BC, where you could swipe your card and receive a 15-minute quick charge to speed you on your way.
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Idealized OR community is no car-free utopia
Oregonian
10/18/2009
An award-winning Hillsboro, OR, neighborhood touted as an ideal of mass-transit oriented new urbanism has failed to persuade a majority of its residents to use mass transit to get to work. About two out of three Orenco Station residents drive to work in cars, slightly less than some other suburbs but hardly a car-free utopia.
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US hunters, anglers lobby for climate bill
Reuters
10/18/2009
An unlikely lobbying group is pressing the US Senate to curb greenhouse gas emissions: American hunting and fishing groups who fear climate change will disrupt their sport. Hunters and anglers are mainly a Republican Party constituency and could help swing crucial votes as the Senate tries to pass legislation to cut carbon output.
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Nickels' mayoral swan song?
New York Times
10/18/2009
With prospects dimming that world leaders will agree to a substantive successor treaty to the expiring Kyoto accord, what mayors do in their cities - constructing green buildings, establishing electric car charging stations, planting urban forests or creating legions of good-paying green jobs - may take on a whole new level of importance.
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Viaduct tunnel claims: Who's right?
Seattle Times
10/18/2009
Seattle mayor candidates Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan have made dozens of conflicting claims about the cost and logistics of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel. Here's a look at how accurate their statements have been.
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Willamette U. prof fights for environmental justice
Oregonian
10/19/2009
Robin Morris Collins teaches sustainability - but not the kind that brings to mind open space preservation, coastal trash cleanups or tree planting. Her law classroom is a place where paradoxes of urban life - old homes with poisonous lead paint, public housing and school playgrounds downwind from chemical-belching industries - are dismantled to expose economic and race bias.
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Electric bikes are all green (colors vary)
Los Angeles Times
10/19/2009
Although electric bikes - pedal-powered bicycles with an electric motor for extra speed when you need it - haven't caught on in the United States as they have in Europe and Japan, makers say high gas prices, the obesity crisis, better lithium-ion rechargeable batteries and a wave of green consciousness make them right for the times.
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Flu fears curb life's rituals
New York Times
10/18/2009
In offices, churches, hospitals, college dorms, schools - even apple orchards - the fear of swine flu is turning age-old rituals on their head. From yoga classes to beer pong gatherings, what used to be O.K. is not anymore, with new standards of etiquette that can be mundane, absurd and heartbreaking.
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A David-and-Goliath food fight
Oregonian
10/18/2009
In the face of a growing obesity epidemic that coincides with large numbers of Oregonians who still go hungry, Multnomah County has decided it's time for a food fight. In a region that plans for nearly everything it values - climate, transportation, land-use, ending homelessness - food is the next frontier.
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I-1033 could hit higher ed especially hard
Seattle Times
10/19/2009
Critics of Tim Eyman's I-1033 argue it would force major cuts in spending on education in Washington and essentially lock them in place for years. State budget writers say the state's colleges and universities are particularly vulnerable to deep cuts.
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