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Clean Cities program manager Stephanie Meyn looks on as U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.) presents a $15 million grant award to the Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition. Photos by Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute
Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute’s sixth annual “Beyond Oil” conference concluded on Saturday, Oct. 24. Once again, thanks to a strong group of co-sponsors, policy, business and civic leaders were able to gather at the Microsoft Conference Center in Redmond, Wash., for smart, forward-looking discussions and presentations about the next stage of electrifying transportation and how the Northwest is poised to help lead that transition.

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Washington Governor Christine Gregoire and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels at Saturday’s signing ceremony. Source: Washington State Department of Transportation On Saturday, with a signed memorandum of agreement between Governor Christine Gregoire and Mayor Greg Nickels, Washington and Seattle formalized their partnership for removing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. As described by the Washington State Department of Transportation, the seven-page agreement “outlines the city and state’s construction and funding responsibilities to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with the proposed bored tunnel.” Last week, Seattle’s City Council voted unanimously on a measure to endorse the tunnel and, according to WSDOT, which “authorized the execution of the agreement.” The Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged by an earthquake in 2001. WSDOT recently released a video Read More ›

(Left to right) Standing in front of the first all-electric Ford Focus in the Northwest, Ford’s Mike Tinskey and John Viera talk to U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (Wash.). All three were conference speakers. Mike Wussow/Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute The second (and final) day of Cascadia Center’s sixth annual “Beyond Oil” conference is now in full swing. Conference attendees just finished listening to Spyros Sakellariadis, director of Microsoft’s Enterprise Strategy Team, and Kush Parikh, vice president at Inrix. They opened today’s first session — “Making Transportation Smart: Software, Connections and Information.” Attendees are now hearing from Set America Free’s Anne Korin, who is discussing the public policy imperatives for moving beyond oil in transportation — especially from a national security Read More ›

Cascadia Center’s TransTech Energy conference began this morning at Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. Co-sponsors include Microsoft, Clean Cities, Ford, Idaho National Laboratory and the University of Washington. This is the sixth conference focusing on the combination of transportation, technology and energy. Three years ago, Cascadia Center hosted a pioneering session to examine the potential of plug-in electric vehicles, and the conferences have continued to grow in scope and influence. This morning, Clean Cities is hosting panels with biofuel and electricity experts to discuss the future of local, sustainable alternative fuel in our region in the context of a “100 Mile Fuel Diet.” Before noon, there will be a certification presentation for the Evergreen Fleets Certification and the announcement of a Read More ›

Former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton addresses the audience gathered at the Arctic Club Hotel in Seattle this morning.
Nearly 200 people packed downtown Seattle’s Arctic Club Hotel today for the Washington, D.C.-based Bipartisan Policy Center’s first national “field” forum to unveil its recommendations calling for dramatic shifts in transportation policy. The report, “Performance Driven: A New Vision for U.S. Transportation Policy,” was unveiled in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 2009, and the BPC is now conducting a set of forums around the country.
As a precursor to today’s event, Senator Gorton published an op-ed in The Seattle Times this morning. In the op-ed, “Transportation dollars should be allocated to maximize larger society goals,” he argued that Washington, D.C., “does not measure how well its transportation investments improve traffic, safety, energy or the environment” which leads to an ineffective system that ultimately negatively impacts America’s “global competitiveness.”

Even though they are the economic engines of the nation, large metropolitan regions like ours bear the brunt of misallocated investments. Unfortunately, the current federal program restricts funds from being used in ways that can best advance regional and national goals.

Inside the Arctic Club’s Northern Lights Dome Room this morning, experts from the BPC and local leaders tried to get their heads around how to best bring the recommendations in the landmark “Performance Driven” report from idea to implementation. Senator Gorton was joined by the BPC’s director of transportation research Joshua Schank and senior advisor JayEtta Hecker. Seattle area leaders on the dais included Bryan Mistele (NTPP member and president and CEO of INRIX), Washington Secretary of Transportation Paula Hammond, and Cascadia Center of Discovery Institute senior fellow Steve Marshall. (A full agenda with participants can be found here.)

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If you haven’t heard, Cascadia Center Senior Fellow Steve Marshall is one of several contributors to a recently published Brookings Institution book, “Plug-In Electric Vehicles: What Role for Washington?” The book, which is available at Amazon.com and at Brookings Institution, brings together the contributions of many leading experts to evaluate “what can and should be done to advance the role of plug-in electric vehicles.” David Sandalow is the editor of the book. Steve Marshall wrote the chapter titled, “Electric Utility Issues in Replacing Oil with Electricity in Transportation.” In the book, Steve concludes: “We need a national program to jump-start a clean, secure energy future. And we need an enduring system of utility regulation that provides the right incentives to Read More ›

A rendering of an eTec fast-charge station. Source: Sustainable Industries
On Wednesday, President Obama announced a $2.4 billion grant program “for manufacturing advanced batteries and other components for electric cars,” according to the New York Times.

The money comes from the economic stimulus package and is intended to further several goals: cutting dependence on petroleum, reducing carbon emissions, creating jobs and giving the United States a better start on what is likely to be a competitive global industry as companies start bringing electric cars to market.

In the Cascadia Corridor, Seattle as well as Eugene, Corvallis, Salem and Portland, Ore., will benefit from a grant of just under $100 million and which was awarded to Phoenix-based eTec (Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation). Some of that grant will be used to facilitate the “installation of 2,250 charging systems for electric vehicles in the Seattle area, and about 10,000 more in other metropolitan areas,” according to industry publication Sustainable Industries.

In Seattle, eTec expects to install charging stations–which will work with any EV that uses an industry-standard connection–in the homes of EV owners at no cost and in office buildings and other public areas. eTec will also install 50 “fast-charge” systems around Seattle which can deliver a “meaningful charge” in about 15 minutes, according to Colin Read, vice president of corporate development for Ecotality, eTec’s parent company. Each charging station could cost between $1,500 and $2,500 to install, according to Fryer.

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Designated High-Speed Rail Corridors Source: Federal Railroad Administration
High-Speed Rail: An Idea Whose Time Has Come
BY Ray Chambers, Cascadia Center
Washington, D.C.–As big campaign ideas cross the Potomac River and seep into the halls of power, all that is sometimes left is a faint memory — promises unkept (often unintentionally) that the political opposition can use in the next election. But sometimes, as is happening with the development of high-speed rail, the political stars align on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, making true progress possible.
The unfolding high-speed rail network looks like the real deal for several important reasons. First there is direct presidential involvement. The Interstate Highway Act of the 1950s was President Eisenhower’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Similarly, the High-Speed Rail (HSR) Corridor program is President Obama’s personal initiative and his highest transportation priority. Never underestimate the momentum of a program personally sponsored by a president.
Second, there is strong bi-partisan support in Congress. In fact the single champion for building high-speed rail corridors by mixing a huge infusion of public finance with “European style” private partnerships and entrepreneurship is U.S. Congressman John Mica (R-Fla.), Ranking Republican on the U.S. House of Representative’s Transportation Committee. Committee Chair Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) is the leading across-the-board promoter of bringing true high-speed rail to America. Representatives Oberstar and Mica have formed an alliance. With leadership by President Obama, I believe HSR will dominate the transportation agenda for the next decade. Third, there are no real alternatives. With growing traffic and congestion, the capacity of the highway system cannot be reasonably expanded. Through a variety of measures such as positive train control and infrastructure projects, the capacity on America’s existing railroad grid can be expanded to an enormous degree. It will be expensive, but not compared to the alternative. In fact, there is no alternative.
Finally, the proof of the HSR pudding is to follow the money. I began to believe this last February when the U.S. House of Representatives provided no money for HSR and the U.S. Senate provided $2 billion in the stimulus package. The Conference made an unusual compromise to fund the program at $8 billion. That was the result of President Obama’s personal intervention in the House-Senate Conference. Then the Obama budget proposed that the HSR Corridor program receive another $1 billion a year for the next five years–upping the kitty to $13 billion, as well as establishing a National Infrastructure Bank. All of this has made me a believer in the HSR initiative.

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There’s typically a lot of green between Tennessee and Oregon. But the two states have something in common when it comes to the future of vehicle technology: Nissan has selected both states (the only two so far) to debut its all-electric car in 2010.
The Oregonian’s Richard Read reports that Nissan was drawn to Oregon’s “green vision,” including its installation of vehicle charging hubs.

Under Gov. Ted Kulongoski’s leadership, Oregon is already building electric vehicle charging stations. And Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen penned an understanding this summer to begin building stations in the Volunteer State. The first roll-out of the vehicles will be for government and commercial fleets.
Click below to read the extended post and The Oregonian’s coverage.

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The primary order of business Wednesday was to take my search for the best signal control system global. One could be forgiven for thinking that since there are large cities all over the world, there must be other signal control systems that rival the best ones in the United States.
It turns out that there is some merit to this way of thinking, but it must be heavily nuanced. America is unique in that it has relatively young cities that were developed with cars in mind. Their hallmarks are heavy use of grids and obsessive traffic control systems; quite a contrast to the ancient citadels of Europe with their medieval layouts, ring roads and excessive use of roundabouts.
It stands to reason that traffic engineers in New York and Los Angeles don’t build adaptive signal systems with giant roundabouts in mind. Nonetheless it seems worth examining how other large foreign cities tackle this problem.
I started with our English speaking neighbors across the pond. According to the Directorate of Traffic Operations for London Streets, they have around 6,000 signals in London, 3,000 of which are purely locally controlled (not controlled by their TMC). Many of these are pedestrian controlled mid-block crossings. Nineteen percent of them are centrally controlled fixed time lights and 30 percent (2,000) are adaptive.

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