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I’m not sure if this is a sign of improvement, but Puget Sound is ranked only 9th worst in the nation for drive time congestion in a recent report by Inrix of Kirkland. Some other lowlights from the report puts us 10th worst in overall congestion, 6th worst in their ‘Drive Time Travel Time Index’ and we have the 8th worst travel time hour.

Funny thing about these rankings, they don’t often show any improvement when a city’s rank changes. Instead they show that the other cities got worse. However, in this case we can claim that we have the 7th largest decrease in drive time congestion from 2006 to 2007. Things improved by a whopping 0.2%. Sounds like a new plank in the Democrat governor’s campaign. Finally she has something to hang her hat on besides quid-pro-quo legislation for her campaign donors.

In other news Silicon Valley can produce more then chips and disks. Scientists there have come up witha genetically altered microbe that eats agricultural waste and excretes crude oil. They wouldn’t put it in their own cars, but they think it will get us off of our Saudi oil dependency (no mention of Venezuela). Maybe someday I’ll be able to put my grass clippings into my SUV.
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Tacoma has been implementing policies that are touted as eco-friendly for a while now. Some of them have come around to bite them, mostly in the form of higher costs or lost revenues (for the city and for businesses in the city). Another consequence of their il-conceived policies has reared it’s ugly head.

One of the major problems with these new policies is that they’re trying to force a supposedly ‘new way of thinking’ into existing environments. In this case they are encouraging multi-story mixed-use buildings (residential combined with commercial, such as retail) by giving tax breaks to developers. And without thought of the consequences the city has allowed these buildings with large reflective exterior surfaces to be built next to existing houses.

The consequence: sunlight is concentrated on existing houses causing the interior to heat up.

Some might think this is an acceptable consequence to protect the planet from its evil nemesis ‘urban sprawl’, but if you’re sitting in a solar roaster that was once a comfortable rambler, it ain’t so cool.
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Wired magazine, known for it’s zealous focus on the latest crazes, takes a look at the latest environmental craze and what people think they should do about it. They don’t actually look at the validity of the anthropogenic issue or the dire consequences debate, but at least they add a little bit of objectivity to the climate of climate change.

Putting aside the absolute lie known as ‘the coming ice age’. And ignoring the food shortages and high prices caused by biofuel mandates, not to mention the slashing and burning of rain forest in Brazil because of their extremely high biofuel mandates. And forget for a moment the economic impact on the timber industry because so-called scientists failed to realize that spotted owls will fornicate anywhere (they just happen to prefer old growth forests the way hippies prefer rock concerts). The list goes on, but lets ignore all that for the moment. I’m starting to wonder which will be the next abject failure of the environmentalist movement.

I’m addressing this to the local liberal set who go crazy over the crazes. Since they’re like most liberals they never really think things through. Let’s hope that this gets them thinking instead of reacting to whatever bright ideas blow their way.
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Does the city really need more money to pay for street repairs? Recently the city came up with $45 million for improvements for downtown in a supposed attempt to keep Russell Investments Group from leaving (and to keep their pipe-dream of a pie-in-the-sky financial district alive).

Now they’re considering going back to voters to ask for more money to repair streets. We already said, ‘no’ to such a proposal, but I’ll get back to that. There wasn’t a vote during this discussion so the only members mentioned in the News Tribune article as supporting the idea are Lonergan (who seems to have proposed it) and Fey.

But this is the money-quote from the TNT article:

But Councilwoman Connie Ladenburg questioned whether there was enough time to develop a proposal that would get to voters this year. Ladenburg also said that the City Council had not determined that street maintenance was the top priority, although it certainly is among the top priorities.

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As an alternative to the zoning approach to land use restrictions, Houston, TX has always had used a free market approach. There are benefits and drawbacks, but the important thing is it puts property rights in the right place, the hands of the property owner.

Michael Ennis of the Washington Policy Center (WPC) attended a conference in Houston where the subject came up. He points out some interesting aspects of the system in this blog entry.

Our Neighborhood Council meeting recently had visits from the city’s planning commission staff and from a lobbyist group that is lobbying the city for more restrictive land use. This article seemed a good way to start the conversation on this blog.

I’m not advocating a radical change to our land use and zoning laws. However, I do want to make clear that a) there are alternatives, and b) that more restriction isn’t the best approach.

Update: Robert Mak, probably the closest thing that Northwest TV news has to an objective reporter, did a segment on this issue (here’s an online synopsis). He spoke with a UW professor who, without outside funding or support, did a study on the impact that land use regulations have on housing prices.
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They took the plunge today and opened for business. This is a great place. They call their coffee shop/bistro ‘Fishtales Bistro’. They’re not allowed restaurant style seating, but there are plenty of choices to take to nearby picnic tables and enjoy.

At the walk-up window is an espresso bar with soups and chowders plus some cool stuff like seafood cocktails. Inside are all of the fish products you’d expect and some more. It’s a good mix of ready to eat, prepped for cooking and unprepped selections.

The location makes it a good place to stop to pick something up for dinner whether I feel like cooking or not (I do like to cook). They’re right on the Ruston Way waterfront in Old Town with plenty of 15 minute parking out front.

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Whenever I talk with a city employee about how they can spend money on pet projects while important issues (like potholes) go unresolved, I get the same answer: buckets. It’s every day’s excuse du jour.

I posted previously about watching crews bury electric wires from tree to tree so that the city could put up Christmas lights when signs were posted across the street telling us to vote ‘Yes’ on funding for emergency services. And when I asked a city employee about it, the answer was ‘buckets’. There was money in the Christmas bucket but none in the emergency services bucket. So everyone who didn’t need an ambulance would have a brighter holiday.

So imagine my surprise last night as I listened to the city council respond to a citizen who brought up the issue of how they were taking money out of one bucket to fill another bucket, which was empty because that bucket was used to fill another bucket that was empty because of a bad decision by city council.

I guess creative bookkeeping can only be used when it’s to cover the mistakes of the city council. But when it’s the public that needs money from an empty bucket, it’s up to the taxpayers to refill it.
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I stopped by the new waterfront location of Northern Fish Products on Ruston Way today and chatted with the folks getting ready to open it up. They’re hoping to open before the copper river salmon show up just after the15th of this month.

They’ll be selling fish products in what appears to be a market style, and will be selling things that will appeal to the foot traffic. It’s a great idea since that street probably has more foot traffic during the summer than even the busiest streets downtown. I’m guessing only the mall can compete with the numbers they’ll see going by each day during the summer.
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Tacoma’s city council, Economic Development Board and some special interest groups continue to cling to failing fantasies of a financial district in downtown Tacoma. All the while they’re wasting taxpayer money and letting opportunities slip through their fingers.

There have been so many warnings they can’t even be referred to as harbingers anymore. The list of businesses that have left Tacoma is long and represents thousands of jobs. The latest company to announce their intent to depart is Davita, a health services company that has a data processing center in downtown Tacoma.

The dream has been to build a financial services district in downtown Tacoma, and with that comes a number of other exploits that are supposed to build the kind of atmosphere that will attract the kind of companies that these people are looking for. The problem is that the people in charge of our tax dollars can’t tell the difference between a good idea and a bad idea.
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Union workers shut down the Port of Tacoma today for an illegal protest of the war in Iraq.

What do unions have to do with foreign policy? The short answer is nothing. So why do they think they can protest on company time and the taxpayer’s nickel?

In case you weren’t aware, it’s illegal for public employees in the state of Washington to strike. Unions do it all the time, but just because public officials and judges don’t do anything about it doesn’t change the law. These people should be put on trial for breaking the law. Not that it would do any good. The union would hire their lawyers (and probably get money from other unions to support their cause… exploiting employers and members) and the judges would likely dismiss the charges or suits after lengthy and costly appeals. But I wouldn’t mind my tax dollars going to strike a blow against these union thugs and in support of the rule of law in our state.

They claim they’re supporting the troops in this protest but that’s just double-talk. Nothing about what they’re doing is supportive of the troops. You can’t support the troops without supporting their mission, you can’t support the troops when you’re wasting money for the businesses that hire our troops when they’re not deployed and you’re not supporting the troops when you waste taxpayer dollars to do something that won’t do a bit of good for anyone.
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