Cascadia | Page 42 | Discovery Institute

^{Mike Lindblom
June 19, 2006
Cascadia}

To Really Save On Gas, Hybrid Car Grows Tail

_{Mike Lindblom
June 19, 2006
Cascadia}

Ryan Fulcher was so intent on getting more than 100 miles a gallon that he drove his Toyota Prius overnight to a technology fair in California, changed the wiring, and installed an extra battery in the trunk. He returned to Washington as the owner of a "plug-in," a car that consumes even less fuel than an ordinary hybrid. The additional battery serves as a spare fuel tank, except it supplies electrons, not gasoline. Each night, Fulcher recharges it from a wall socket at his Federal Way home. Then, the engine can run all-electric for 30 miles before taking its first sip of gas. A Prius that normally attains 50 mpg can achieve hundreds of mpg at low speed. Fulcher may be a pioneer in a potentially large-scale shift to plug-ins, which are gaining momentum with politicians and environmentalists as a route to energy independence. Read More ›

^{Mike Lindblom
June 15, 2006
Cascadia}

Locke Recruiting Big Guns To Push For Roads, Transit

_{Mike Lindblom
June 15, 2006
Cascadia}

Seventeen months before the big vote, former Gov. Gary Locke is recruiting a high-powered committee to promote a ballot measure for more highways and transit lines in urban King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Locke is serving with two co-chairmen on opposite ends of the political spectrum: John Carlson is a conservative radio talk-show host who lost the governor's race to Locke in 2000 and last year backed a losing initiative to cancel a gas-tax increase. Jessyn Schor is executive director of the pro-transit Transportation Choices Coalition. Their Puget Sound Transportation Roundtable is only an advisory board, but it is expected to include labor, environmental and business leaders whose clout and money might influence what local politicians send to the November 2007 ballot. Read More ›

^{Kristi Heim
June 2, 2006
Cascadia}

Energy, Transportation Talk Of Tech Conference

_{Kristi Heim
June 2, 2006
Cascadia}

ome unusual cars pulled up to the curb at Microsoft's campus Thursday three ultra-compact Smart cars that are enjoying brisk sales at a "green" dealership in Kirkland, a Volkswagen Jetta with an extra fuel tank for vegetable oil, and a plug-in hybrid that can get 100 miles per gallon. The clean-burning and fuel-efficient cars were on display as part of a conference on "Future Trends in Energy, Technology and Transportation," co-sponsored by Microsoft and the Discovery Institute's Cascadia Center for Regional Development. Yet even as the technology moves forward, some transportation problems still seem to be stuck in neutral. The biggest complaint many participants had was fighting gridlock over Highway 520 to get there.....Speakers introduced some potential solutions to energy and transportation problems, including a master-planned eco-city, passenger ferries, improved bus service that functions as rapid transit, toll roads, magnetic levitation trains, biofuels and cutting-edge cars. Read More ›

^{Bruce Agnew and Charles Ganske
May 28, 2006
Cascadia}

Securing Our Ports Remains a Work in Progress

_{Bruce Agnew and Charles Ganske
May 28, 2006
Cascadia}

When Republican U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert was a King County deputy, he faced some harrowing situations during stakeouts and while responding to domestic violence calls because he could not communicate with other police departments equipped with different radio sets. Now, as chairman of the House Homeland Security subcommittee, he sees the same lack of interoperability between communications systems, but on Read More ›

^{Bruce Agnew and Steve Marshall
May 23, 2006
Cascadia}

Plug-In Energy Independence

_{Bruce Agnew and Steve Marshall
May 23, 2006
Cascadia}

Imagine a car that gets more than 100 miles a gallon, reduces greenhouse gases and helps free America from its reliance on foreign oil. There is growing bipartisan support and interest for just that kind of car a plug-in, flexible-fuel hybrid vehicle. And on June 1 at the Microsoft Conference Center, policymakers and the public will be able to Read More ›

^{Editorial Board
April 23, 2006
Cascadia}

Making the Case for Future Road Tolls

_{Editorial Board
April 23, 2006
Cascadia}

Tolls are the coming thing. Politicians like the idea of them, as does the transportation fraternity. The public does not. It will be persuaded to accept tolls only when they provide an immediate benefit which they can, if done right. The case for tolls was made at a recent Discovery Institute conference in Seattle. It boils down to two things. Tolls can pay for more bridges and roads, and tolls can help get the most out of the bridges and roads we have....In the not-too-distant future, we might envision rush-hour tolls on Interstate 5, with the money going to maintenance and improvement of the region's major north-south freeway. The tolls could be set at a level so that traffic speed could be increased to 50 mph, the speed a freeway will move the most cars per hour. If that were done, one could imagine one commentator saying that the chance to drive on a free-flowing I-5 at 4:30 in the afternoon was a new thing, and worth paying for, and another commentator saying that it was really quite wonderful that more people were riding the bus. Read More ›

^{Joseph Turner
April 12, 2006
Cascadia}

Who Will Take Helm Of Foot Ferries?

_{Joseph Turner
April 12, 2006
Cascadia}

Theyre like buses on water: ferries that carry passengers and bicycles but no cars from Vashon Island and Bremerton to downtown Seattle and back. But all of them lose money. They continue to operate only with a heavy subsidy from the state, or in the case of Bremerton-Seattle, a private operator who is eating his losses. The private foot ferry that once served riders from Kingston, Kitsap County, to Seattle no longer exists because it was bleeding so much green. And now, some members of the Legislature want to get out of the passenger-only ferry business entirely and hand off the last of the state-operated runs Vashon to Seattle to King or Kitsap County. Read More ›

^{Discovery Institute
April 4, 2006
Cascadia}

U.S. Senators and Congressmen to Address Homeland Security, Alternative Energy at Cascadia Conference

_{Discovery Institute
April 4, 2006
Cascadia}

Original Article Cascadia/Microsoft TransTech Forum On Future Trends in Energy, Technology and Transportation May 31-June 1 SEATTLE, May 24 /PRNewswire/ — “Energy, security and transportation as domestic and foreign policy issues make this conference very timely, and we’re fortunate to have the insights of so many distinguished leaders from the public and private sector,” said Bruce Agnew, Director of the Read More ›

^{April 4, 2006
Cascadia}

Thanks, Legislature, for Spurring Action on Regional Transportation

_{April 4, 2006
Cascadia}

Original Op-Ed The Washington state Legislature told the Puget Sound region loudly and clearly last month: “Get your transportation act together!” We congratulate the Legislature on two counts: first, for its leadership in 2003 and 2005 in passing ambitious, needed revenue packages for equally ambitious transportation construction programs; and, second, for recognizing that without regional deadlines, vital regional transportation decisions Read More ›

^{March 31, 2006
Cascadia}

Transportation Washington March 2006 Newsletter

_{March 31, 2006
Cascadia}

Legislative Wrap-Up In a short 60-day session, the Legislature made great progress in a number of areas, including education, medical malpractice, the environment and transportation. Of particular importance to transportation, the use of biofuels became a reality and Puget Sound regional transportation set a new course. Biofuels Issue Bonds East and West Senate Bill 6508: Positive steps from foreign oil Read More ›