puget sound

Cascadia Blog Article Highlights Teleworking Green, Productivity Benefits

This article, published by TMCnet.com, mentions the Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute: The Cascadia Center which works on regional transportation and sustainable development issues for the Discovery Institute, has taken a strong interest in telework. The rest of the article can be found here.

Time To Go “All In” On Tolls

Just putting tolls on the Evergreen Point Bridge is not going to cut it. Instead, the region needs to apply tolls all along the 520 corridor and broadly across our highway system. Here's an encouraging progress report. The four-lane Evergreen Point Floating Bridge across Lake Washington on State Route 520 is a relic of a bygone era, congested and disaster prone. How urgent is the need for a planned six-lane replacement? The Washington State Department of Transportation has gone so far as to graphically model on YouTube how the bridge might buckle under duress, threatening lives and paralyzing the region's highway network. And is the region stepping up to the challenge? Less than half the funding is secured. The Seattle-side configuration is still being debated. More broadly, the project begs a more comprehensive regional tolling strategy because our bridges and highways are all connected. We can't keep doing transportation mega-projects on a disjointed, one-off basis. A key to any solution is tolling, and soon. Here and nationwide, 40 years of sizzling growth in vehicle miles traveled has left too many sections of highways, arterial roads, and bridges overburdened, in disrepair, and obsolete in the face of seismic and other hazards. Those ballyhooed federal stimulus funds were a mere drop in the bucket, amounting to less than one-quarter of what a landmark Congressional commission report says is needed annually. The per-gallon gas tax is badly failing at the federal and state levels. The federal gas tax trust fund is bankrupt, and living on bailouts. Even tripling state gas tax contributions to pending mega-projects in Washington state would do little to close wide funding gaps, state data show. A big new federal transportation bill — which may well include the first hike in the U.S. gas tax since 1993 — will help some, but not that much. (More) Read More ›

Transportation Dollars Should Be Allocated To Maximize Larger Society Goals

ALL of us experience frustration, annoyance — and even rage — from being stuck in traffic. In the Puget Sound region, where traffic congestion ranks among the worst in the nation, most of us experience these feelings almost every day. But the problem goes well beyond a rotten commute. The gas that our vehicles consume as they sit in traffic, Read More ›

Why We Should Stick To Our Consensus For A Deep-bore Tunnel

I served on the Alaskan Way Viaduct Stakeholders Committee that studied options to replace the Viaduct. After conducting 16 meetings and hearing from 23 expert witnesses, a large majority of the stakeholders recommended further review of, or outright support for, the deep bore tunnel. The stakeholders also studied the “surface option” favored by City Council candidate Mike O’Brien, and then the Read More ›

Traffic Congestion Down, But Costs To Commuters Still Up

This article, published by Seattle PI, mentions Matt Rosenberg of Discovery Institute: Matt Rosenberg, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center for Regional Development, cited the Seattle-area’s numbers on the Cascadia Prospectus, which showed the annual cost to Puget Sound commuters at $1.59 billion — the highest since TTI first began publishing the report. The rest of the article Read More ›

Talking Corridor Tolling

The first thing you need to know about KIRO-FM 97.3 News Talk host Dori Monson is that when he says he’s “filled full of Diet Coke, caffeine and righteous rage,” he’s not kidding. Okay, maybe he’s exaggerating a bit, showman that he is. Let’s just say he’s a high-energy guy and a strenuous advocate of fiscal accountability and limited taxes, as I Read More ›

Corridor Tolling Radio Discussion

Matt Rosenberg of Discovery Institute was interview on the Dori Monson Show (KIRO-FM 97.3). The audio of the interview can be found here.  

Will More Washington Roads Take Their Toll On Drivers

This article, published by Seattle PI, quotes Matt Rosenberg of Discovery Institute: Matt Rosenberg, a senior fellow at Cascadia Center of the Discovery Institute, recently called for managing peak-hour congestion in the central Puget Sound area “by bravely establishing – and soon – a seamless regional system of variably-priced, automated, and ultimately corridor-length tolling on highways and major state routes.” The rest of the Read More ›

Flexible Tolling: The Key To Solving Our Congestion

Transit can’t solve the problem, and we can’t afford to build enough highways. So modern tolling, with prices varied by demand, will be necessary. Here’s a look at how the Legislature is quietly laying the political and conceptual groundwork. Start with the transportation facts of life. Population in the four counties of Central Puget Sound will have grown from the 2008 total Read More ›

Deep Bored Tunnel Bill Is Signed Into Law – News Round-up

“This was not an easy process, but it’s done. It is done. It is done,” Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels said Tuesday afternoon at a signing ceremony for state legislation to replace the elevated highway with a deep-bored tunnel. “Today we end the era of the Viaduct.” Before signing the bill, Gov. Chris Gregoire addressed people who still questioned whether the state could build the Read More ›