ashley's blog

Are extensive public battles over viaducts contagious? Vancouver, B.C., residents might soon find out. As Seattle trudges along on it meandering journey toward a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct, a debate has broken out between Vancouver political leaders on the future of the city’s Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.

Sound Transit is now one step closer to constructing its planned University Link light rail route, and this step came in under budget.

Sound Transit's Board of Directors approved a contract Thursday to construct the twin-bored tunnels that will take light rail trains from downtown to the planned Capitol Hill station. The contract is worth $153.5 million, approximately 12 percent below Sound Transit's original cost estimate for the project.

(Pete Buck, chairman of the nonprofit board of Northwest Hub, will be contributing serendipitous observations from time to time. He has a tiny camera in the glove box of his car and an eye and ear for what is good in the world. Anyone with ideas for positive happenings, programs, things, etc., should contact him at pete@northwesthub.org.)

The Seattle Department of Planning and Development (DPD) released its biweekly land use information bulletin today. The following list provides the highlights. For more detailed information, click here.

City Issues Approval for Mixed-Use Development in Lake City

After tackling fast food restaurants—by banning the establishment of more eateries—South Los Angeles has now turned its attention to convenience stores. A new study published in the policy journal Health Affairs found that fast food restaurants may not be the real culprit behind the region's rising obesity rates.

The AIA Seattle Design Gallery will be hosting Transit-Oriented Communities: A Blueprint for Washington State.

One Eastside city is boasting that its alternative transportation incentive program has been hugely successful in getting its residents to make fewer vehicle trips—nearly 1 million fewer vehicle trips, to be exact. 

The City of Redmond reported yesterday that R-TRIP (the Redmond Trip Resource and Incentive Program) has been successful in convincing 15,001 Redmond residents and employees to take 1,003,081 fewer vehicle trips since the program's implementation in May 2008.

The Bellevue City Council voted unanimously on Oct. 19 to consider changes to the city’s helicopter landing regulations. It also voted down two proposals: one that would have placed an immediate moratorium on helistop and helipad construction, and the other, a code amendment that would have banned all non-emergency helicopter flight in the city.

A new consulting firm opened its doors—most of them figurative—on Oct 19. Critigen, a firm with four area offices and a largely virtual workforce, will provide high-tech consulting on critical infrastructure issues. The company was formerly a department of CH2M Hill, a consulting firm working under a wider umbrella of issues.

As part of efforts to update the state's 20-year-old toxics cleanup law, the Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) is seeking public comment on vapor intrusion cleanup requirements for contaminated sites.