Current Stories
Editor's Top Picks
Cohousing trend hits Seattle
Publicola
03/18/2010
Cohousing -- "intentional" living communities where residents occupy their own houses or condo units but otherwise share everything from potlucks to P-Patch duty with neighbors -- is resurfacing in metro Seattle for the first time in more than a decade.
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Views: Is Seattle ready for design, density, affordability?
Seattle Times
03/18/2010
Over the past two decades, Seattle has been inundated by a wave of poorly designed cookie-cutter town-house development. Known commonly as "Four Packs," these buildings have been a blight on our city. Now Seattle is considering changes to its zoning code.
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For more Americans, Grandma is moving back in
Christian Science Monitor
03/18/2010
Tens of millions of Americans are sharing their quarters with grandparents, adult children, and grandchildren -- and it's not just because of the economy, a report Thursday by the Pew Research Center shows.
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Turning muddy pits into green spaces, parking
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
03/18/2010
Seattle is drafting legislation to help give idle construction sites another purpose, including turning them into parking lots and green spaces as well as locations for art installations and mobile food vendors.
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Riders take to faster buses
Everett Herald
03/18/2010
The Swift line runs more buses and stops less frequently than other routes, which speeds up trips from Everett to Seattle. Swift's per-bus boardings are growing and are now comparable to those of other routes, officials said.
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Views: In favor of green streets, bike boulevards
Oregonian
03/17/2010
Bicycle boulevards save lives. Bioswales protect our environment. Both make Portland's neighborhoods safer, cleaner, and greener, says Portland Mayor Sam Adams.
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Views: How to build a vibrant 'hood
Oregonian
03/17/2010
The nature of man is to form clusters and villages. In any big city, these villages will appear if they're allowed to. Residential. Restaurants. Retail. Everything you need. Sometimes city leaders just need to get out of the way.
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Portland backs $20 million for bikes and bioswales
Oregonian
03/17/2010
The Portland City Council voted today to spend $20 million in sewer contract savings to help build new bike lanes. The vote was unanimous, despite grumbling from the public.
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Getting around without owning a car
Eugene Weekly
03/18/2010
For recent Eugene transplant Branden Richel, the idea of starting up a not-for-profit car share cooperative is but one incremental step in the right direction, as a means of reducing the sheer number cars clogging the roads and supporting public transit.
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Green Portland apparently isn't green enough
Oregonian
03/16/2010
The city that loves its trees - and we have the leafy droppings every fall to prove it - apparently lags behind Atlanta and San Antonio when it comes to tree canopy coverage. But the canopy question goes beyond mere competitiveness, as Portland hopes to finish a citywide tree proposal that will increase its leafiness as well as streamline tree policies.
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Urban fringe farms interest developers
Crosscut
03/17/2010
While big farms are slipping in number, Washington is seeing a rise in small farms, the main suppliers of farmers markets. Developers are now treating a small farm as an attractive amenity, attracting those hooked on the FarmVille fantasy game.
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Taking odds on the tunnel
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
03/16/2010
What's the likelihood that Seattle's ambitious Alaskan Way Viaduct tunnel will finish on time and on budget?
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New protections set for Twain's jumping frog
Seattle Times
03/16/2010
Mark Twain celebrated them, hungry gold prospectors ate them, and rural landowners cursed the name of the California red-legged frog. Now, the jumping frog, whose dwindling numbers empowered anti-sprawl advocates while thwarting farmers, ranchers and developers across California, is getting an established habitat to protect its recovery. Maybe.
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How to make urban alleys work
Crosscut
03/17/2010
Urban alleys in Seattle may soon be making a comeback, thanks to a recent design competition that highlighted how safe, active, and delightful they could be with the right design talent, programming. and management.
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Spokane tunes up fleet's eco-friendly quotient
Spokesman Review
03/16/2010
The city of Spokane is getting an oil change as part of its effort to promote environmental sustainability. Officials recently announced that the city's 1'400 vehicles will now be running on re-refined motor oil, a product made from waste oil.
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Biking in Portland - like housework!
Momentum
03/14/2010
Bicycling in Portland, Oregon - if all goes as planned - is doomed to become as mundane as vacuuming your house (or so the experts would have you believe). It's becoming that rare place where cycling is taken for granted, and this evolutionary stage could portend the future face of cycling in other cities.
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Charging ahead
Oregon Public Broadcasting
03/15/2010
The West Coast is about to take part in the biggest rollout of electric cars and charging stations in the world. The first mass-market electric cars go on sale in greater Seattle and Oregon's Willamette Valley at the end of this year. Pollsters are finding high interest in the Northwest in electric cars.
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Transit wars: Vancouver good, Toronto bad?
Toronto Globe and Mail
03/14/2010
You think you're so great, don't you, Vancouver? You just hosted the Olympics. You've got gorgeous scenery and plenty of good vibes. And apparently your transit system likes to pat itself on the back for all-around great customer service. Sure, the Toronto Transit Commission has been taking it on the chin lately, but is it really so bad?
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Views: Smell testing sewer money for bikeways
Oregonian
03/15/2010
Portland must decide whether the plan is truly clever or breaches public trust in how projects are funded.
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Street party brings SF locals to tourist land
San Francisco Chronicle
03/14/2010
For Susan Jeiven, street closures that allowed pedestrians and bicyclists to reclaim 3 miles of San Francisco's Embarcadero on Sunday were not to be missed, even if she was hobbled by a recent bunion surgery that kept her confined to a wheelchair."If it weren't for the street closure, I'd be road kill for sure," she said.
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Views: To be sustainable, use what you have
Oregonian
03/14/2010
Saving and reusing historic buildings is more environmentally friendly and economically sound than tearing them down, even if they are replaced by the greenest, LEEDiest structures imaginable.
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Future of 'green wood' hangs on decision
The Tyee
03/15/2010
New LEED rules are poised to remake market for environmental forest products and Canadian timber. But some argue the looser standards would allow status-quo forestry to be called "green" and undercut the market for sustainably grown wood.
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At ground zero in OR, fighting for farmland
Oregonian
03/12/2010
Washington County farmland is "ground zero" for issues that arise when urban and rural Oregon collide: subdivisions adjacent to fields, neighbors' objections, water rights, rural traffic and setting aside land for wildlife. As a result, traditionally conservative farm bureau members have coalesced around a belief: "If you're in farming, you should be protecting the land."
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Cyclists give Google bike maps mixed reviews
Oregonian
03/11/2010
Like a lot of Portland bicycle commuters, Dat Nguyen was popping mental wheelies after Google unveiled bike directions on its wildly popular online mapping site. But that excitement deflated when he asked for the best bike route from his Southeast Portland home to his downtown office. "All alley ways," he said. "It's evil."
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Little houses for better living
Eugene Weekly
03/11/2010
Want to live green? Go small.
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