The city council just announced its top priorities for 2010, and—as first reported on PubliCola earlier today—carbon neutrality was at the top of the list. Council member Mike O’Brien got the biggest applause of this afternoon’s meeting when he announced the council would seek to make the city carbon-neutral—meaning that the city’s net carbon footprint will be zero—by 2030.
“Climate change is arguably the most significant moral challenge that we’re going to face in our lifetimes,” he said. “Our actions over the next 100 years are going to impact all of us, but the burdens are going to be carried disproportionately by the poor.”
By the end of this year, O’Brien said, the council will come up with a definition of carbon neutral (for example, O’Brien said, if he buys a water bottle made in China and shipped here, should those emissions count toward Seattle’s total?), and a set of concrete policies aimed at achieving it.
Some possible actions O’Brien mentioned: Figuring out “a smarter way to get around”; changing land use so that people “live in smaller units closer to where we work and where we play” while simultaneously ensuring that “our densest neighborhoods are also our most livable neighborhoods”; and improving building efficiency.
Mayor Mike McGinn has been skeptical of the council’s approach of adopting lofty goals like carbon neutrality while they simultaneously push policies that work against those goals. Last week, he said, “If we want to spend a year or two setting up a new goal and creating a work plan to do it while we’re taking actions that accomplish the opposite, that’s not what I think we should be doing.”
After the meeting, I asked O’Brien whether he had talked to McGinn about the council’s proposal and what the mayor had said in response.
O’Brien said he had only talked to the mayor briefly, but added, “I think I have an understanding of where the mayor comes from, and I think where most people come from: Talk is cheap and we need to back it up with action. I’m personally committed, and we’re all committed, to a series of actions” to achieve carbon neutrality, O’Brien said.
During a press availability after the council meeting, McGinn said, “I think it would be great if the city council embraced aggressive action on reducing global warming emissions—that’s been a concern of mine for a long time.” However, he said, given that transportation emissions make up half of all carbon emissions in the region, “when you set these goals you start running into pretty hard choices on implementation. … We’re going to have to make some tough choices on transportation and start making them soon.”
Moreover, at least two of the council’s stated goals contradicted their vision of a carbon-neutral city.
The first was moving forward swiftly on the downtown deep-bore tunnel, which council member Sally Bagshaw identified as one of her top priorities. “We’re going to enhance our quality of life by efficiently moving people and freight… [and] preserve the region’s natural beauty by moving traffic off the waterfront and supporting new ways that we can get around,” Bagshaw said. The only problem: The tunnel, as McGinn has pointed out, explicitly excludes transit.
After the council meeting, McGinn reiterated his commitment to ensuring that Seattle isn’t on the hook for tunnel cost overruns. “Here’s what we know about tunnels: They’re expensive. The other thing we know about tunnels is that they very frequently have cost overruns,” McGinn said.
“My question for the city council is, are they going to work with us to keep [overruns] from happening, or are they going to proceed with the risk of cost overruns and just deal with that eventuality when it happens?”
The second, starting construction on a new 520 bridge, was outlined by council transportation chair Tom Rasmussen, who said it was time to stop debating about how to replace the bridge and move forward with construction. The state’s preferred replacement option would include two HOV lanes and four general-purpose lanes. McGinn has proposed looking at a 520 option that would include high-capacity transit and reduce the number of general-purpose lanes to two. He blamed some of the delay on replacing 520 on people who “don’t just want to replace the pontoons,” which are causing a safety risk, “they want to build a bigger bridge” as well.
Bagshaw and Rasmussen weren’t the only council member who outlined priorities that sounded like veiled jabs at the mayor’s agenda. For example, Jean Godden made a point of recognizing “all the city employees in the room,” saying, “You are public servants in the best sense of the phrase and we couldn’t have done it without you.” Then she vowed to “craft a budget that makes smart choices and invests [tax] dollars fairly and efficiently. McGinn angered city employees earlier this year by proposing the elimination of 200 strategic advisor and senior-level management positions.
Tim Burgess, meanwhile, effectively coopted the mayor’s proposed Youth and Family initiative, noting that the council has “spent the last year building stronger relationships with the school board and school district leaders” to help improve the school system and reduce youth violence. McGinn will hold the first in a series of five town meetings on the initiative at the Rainier Community Center tonight at 7.
And Nick Licata said he was committed to keep the Office of Housing—rumored to be a target for elimination by McGinn—open. When I asked him whether he had reason for concern about the office’s future, Licata said, “I’m operating on the assumption that the office will continue.”
However, asked the same question, McGinn said, “We have some big deicisions to make about how we’re going to reduce our $50 million budget deficit next year … so we’re going to be looking for how we can find efficiencies in how we organize government so that we can preserve services, including housing.”
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Mike O'Brien's challenge to Seattle to become carbon neutral by—- is a laudable and good one! And he is spot on by pointing out that transportation contributing 62 percent share of our carbon emisions, is our biggest challenge. I should point out that the city established a more agressive goal than Kyoto for reducing carbon emissions 2000, under Mayor Schell's and Councilmember Heidi Wills's leadership. It was largely ignored for the five years that followed. Portland was the firtst city in the nation to establish (in the early 1990's!), then surpass Kyoto reductions. It will be tough, require a BIG shift in prioriities, public investments, and especially behavior change. But O' Brien is also right, everybody needs to get in on the act! Just because we have relatively clean energy in the PNW, doesn't mean we can sit back and do nothing.
Does anybody know how much power the mayor has versus how much power the City Council has? I'm just curious how much McGinn is going to be able to get done with the Council opposing him.
I'd take this a step further. Because of our clean energy in the PNW we have a unique opportunity to be a role model for the world.
Transportation makes up 62% but road transportation is 40% – air is 18% and marine 4%.
So let's give priority parking to cars getting over 35 mpg right now. Make it more and more difficult to park low mpg vehicles. Expand the electric charging system. Double the gas mileage and we cut emissions by 20%.
Instead of building a bigger 520 just keep it 4 lanes and talk Gates into building a Seattle campus for all MSFT workers on this side of the pond.
Umm… I'm no scientist, but does the global climate really live and die based on whether Seattle is hitting its targets? Meanwhile amongst the rest of the world – from Bellevue to China – very little changes. If enviros had any balls, they'd be campaigning for change outside of their comfort zones, outside of liberal urban strongholds where one-upmanship has us arguing over semantics while the rest of the world burns.
I prefer to light a candle than curse the darkness.
I'm not proposing to light a candle. I'm saying your (Seattle's) candle is already lit. Go light another one.
Check that – that should read “I'm not proposing to curse the darkness.”
Jeez as soon as we finish Mercer, the tunnel and a huge 520 we'll get right on it.
It is better to be right than effective.
What is O'Brien suggesting? Does he want to stop trade with China because of the pollutants caused by freighters?
What else does he want to do? Stop the Ducks, dry-dock the ferries send the cruise ships packing?
Seattle must have a carbon impact. It is a city. While we certainly can do better with reducing pollutants, the city must be the sacrificial anode to protect our forests, mountains and waters.
If Seattle makes development impossible then are Urban Growth Boundaries are meaningless.
Is there any evidence that McGinn angered city employees other than strategic advisors when he proposed cutting 200 jobs? I can imagine that they might be happy that the pain is being shared by all.
3 cents, thats an interesting point. That said, I'm scared of most carbon-neutrality schemes because they all seemed to rely on some version of cap and trade, which is bound be just another conduit for wall street and big companies to game (just like in europe) while the middle class pays for it. No one – let me repeat, no one – wants cap and trade more than Goldman Sachs. A common sense taxation of fossil fuels with a rebate of the proceeds going to households to pay for the higher costs of alternatives sources of energy (or better yet, pocket the money if less alternatives are needed) would be simple and efficient, but that would cut out the money-sucking Squid on Wall Street
Gates isn't the problem with MSFT. I worked on a couple teams over there that tried to move to Seattle (the entire company is seriously short on space in Redmond). 40% of the employees, mostly management and senior engineers, threatened to quit the team on the spot. There's a bunch of higher-ups, usually older, with families, who live on the east side and refuse to commute to Seattle. It's usually younger, less influential employees with less established households who live on the west side and commute. On average.
The most interesting thing here is that the Mayor was responding to the council's agenda….rather than the other way around. Looks like the power has shifted, advantage Council.
It's fantastic to see Councilmember O'Brien staking out his own course in collaboration with his City Council colleugues. It was clear from watching him field questions from the press that he can clearly articulate a vision and also talk about the details of a the issue.
Nickels employed the mushroom growing strategy (keep them in the dark and feed them horse manure) in dealing with the Council and it worked very well for him, not so well for Seattle. He prohibited City Departments from co-operating with the Council or even communicating with them without his approval. One year he didn't bother presenting the State of City address to the Council delivering it instead to downtown business interests. The Council spent 8 years wandering around picking their noses. It will be interesting to see if they can gain equilibrium with the Mayor or push the Mayor around. With Conlin leading the Council that would appear unlikely. He is a nice guy but spends to much time poking around in blind alleys looking at ephemera.
Seattle is far behind ever becoming anything like a role model and rapidly regressing in the reverse direction. Dream on. Seattle has effective propaganda ministers, unaccountable legislators and clueless city councilpersons.
Mayor Mike is right to get started on the seawall NOW, not later. Why are seawall reconstruction studies unfinished? Its expedited replacement is critical and begun first in rebuilding Alaskan Way, yet WSDOT and SDOT waste years studying a multitude of AWV SR99 replacement concepts while the seawall is poised to collapse of its own decay.
The best tunnel option is still a Cut-n-cover because it creates the 'strongest' seawall and 'most stable' Alaskan Way. Better emergency exit, ventilation, lighting, lower maintenance and operating costs. It could cost less and will create more construction jobs. A 6-lane 'stacked' cut/cover would retain existing AWV capacity and be built while leaving the AWV in place. The portal work in SoDo is applicable to a Cut/cover. The forest of pilings beneath Alaskan Way may have to be removed anyway, for soil stabilization, utilities etc, so there may be no avoiding a reconstruction mess.
Sally Bagshaw LIES by saying the deep-bore tunnel removes
traffic from the waterfront. BS! The deep-bore adds as much as 40,000 vehicles daily to Alaskan Way and Mercer, cars that now access the AWV at Western/Elliott but are forced onto these surface streets with the
deep-bore tunnel.
Many Thanks, Mike, for putting the brakes on the deep-bore fiasco. Don't allow Mercer Place & Street from Elliott through Lower Queen Anne to become a freight corridor to access the deep-bore portal on Aurora. Perhaps you'll find some way for clueless Seattlers to save face. I suggest formally and honestly reconsidering Tunnelite.
“carbon neutrality was at the top of the list. “
So I guess that pot hole on my street will have to wait….fu*king idiots.
I expected a lot of woo-woo stuff from the Council but not quite this much. No specificity whatsoever. As far as McGinn, in a town where less and less people can afford to live and more people are losing their homes, he's thinking about getting rid of the Department of Housing!??!!? The department that oversees the housing levy we just voted for? Geezus.
Yes indeed, let's get rid of those cars that get less than 35 MPG. Are you guys with Priuses going to go out and pick up the people with the cheap old cars and drive them to and from work, and take their kids to daycare and back? The people who can only afford to live in Renton but work in Seattle, I mean. No, your Priuses will be at the dealers having their pedals fixed. But somebody's got to, since bus service is being cut back.
I can't believe how uncaring this city is. We've already reached empathy neutrality.
The city council needs to put their actual choices and actions where their rhetoric is. It is stupid to build a tunnel and a non-transit connected bridge while pledging to be carbon neutral. First step: spend city money and resources on projects and programs that move us OUT of our cars.
O'Brien confuses being effective with being an advocate. Phony comparisons Portland don't wash in Seattle, which is better in almost every comparison.
Let's see the specifics before we cheer.
O'Brien has no clue. Talk to him sometime. His conviction is deep but his understanding is extremely shallow. If you ask for specifics, he's likely to punt.
Real change requires real leaders who have command of subjects. This topic is too important to be left to leadership by a dilettante.
But that's exactly my point. In fact, here's my whole point. Our lucky head start has given us the image of a green city, and we are unique in that we don't have far to go to be carbon neutral. Almost anything is possible with a motivated populous – the hard part is in the motivating. Having a chance at being the world's best brings with it a whole lot of encouragement.
Yawn. Wait until the council and the mayor (I think McGinn is starting to get it) realize that the city is flat-ass broke in 2010 midyear with an additional $10-15M in tax revenue shortfall and with a projected 2011 $60M shortfall. And watch for a tax levy in the name of public safety.
Also, some councilmanic bonds. Good luck trying to peddle those
munis.
I think it angered city employees because it was a dishonest process and inaccurate. Most city employees recognized that the way McGinn was characterizing the positions and then the way he went about the process to identify the positions, was dubious at best. They were not 'political positions created by Nichols' and the sledgehammer vs. scalpel approach was frustrating for employees. A lot of gifted people that McGinn would be wise to hold on to were close to losing their jobs.
Not to mention the fact that he had Chris Haugen / Bushnell leading the process.
I'm all for the effort to combat climate change and be a leader in that. It's one of Greg Nichol's great contributions that he led the movement to follow through on Kyoto. What I don't understand is why leaders like Mike O'Brien keep characterizing it as the greatest moral challenge of our generation. Really? Isn't an issue like human trafficking a greater moral challenge?
Seattle has zero chance of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030 without buying offsets. The state has similar but less ambitous goals it continually ignores, because they are only GOALS. Get your greenwashing stamp ready.
Maybe this goal will become that city government will be climate neutral by 2030. That seems doable for a group that is otherwise locking in hundreds of thousands of new tons of CO2e with 520 and the tunnel.
Well, I for one am glad to see that Race and Social Justice is still a priority. We may not be able to keep libraries open or parks maintained, but mandatory viewings of PBS reruns will always have a place in the city.
Culture shame today. Culture shame tomorrow. CULTURE SHAME FOREVER!!!!
I said give priority to 35 mpg cars in parking not to get rid of those above 35 mpg. Geo Metros and a number of other older cheaper cars than the Prius get great mileage. I was referring to hwy miles, but if combined, it should be 33 mpg -
Sounds to me like 'soft fascism.'
Yes of course we have to deal with the problem.
But the way it's mirrored by you sounds like just more chance to create the regulatory state.
McGinn, as a political practicality, has it all wrong when he stresses density. You don't start with density — you start with creating urban places so interesting that people will want to be close.
There is a subtle but real difference — what I hear turns me off. Sounds creepy! “Moral choices!” BS. Grand operatics in an echo chamber. We have practical problems that we need to Re-Form our entire cycle of production, energy, recycle etc etc.
But that issue of morality is such a turn-off. All that hectoring and telling people what to do. No wonder people respond to the worst in Sarah Palin and Company — liberals bring it on by this awful cloying nanny state,
That's not a rant — just accurate.
PS WTF do people stay anonymous? As if anything anyone says anything so dramatic that anyone cares, or in most cases even reads.
how about we buy Bloom Boxes:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/02/18/60min...
Wells:
Get over it. There will be no cut and cover tunnel. It will not happen. The time to bitch about your preferred tunnel has come and gone.
I would add that I don't see that many people who rely on older cars being able to afford parking downtown for their jobs. I park in one of the cheaper garages, and it still comes out to over $210/mo after taxes (although I luck out in that I conned my bosses into picking up the tab).
With the exceptions to the rule, the cost of parking and gas combined would likely make them able to afford $300-$500/mo more for an apartment closer to downtown, and then walking/transit become an easier option; or housing nearer a light rail stop.
I have a theory on this. I think that there are really only 10 people who regularly comment, and a couple comment regularly with different names, and argue with themselves, just for something fun and exciting to do.
I may have to do that myself, come to think on it.
Why would anyone want to be known on the Internet? It doesn't matter to me why or who is posting to a blog. I don't place much value on the opinion of posters anonymous or otherwise. However the Internet is a huge permanent record which employers and ID thieves abuse.
I do not!
Yes you do !
I was speaking of street parking that the city controls – make the hourly rate $1.25 per hour for little cars.
Okay, so a city block that is dedicated to cars that get 35mpg or greater…how are the meter maids expected to know which get that high of mileage? Is the actual mpg limit determined by highway or combined mileage?
(I should point out, I like the general idea)
To M M -
I would make the end spots on blocks the low priced ones. This would serve the double function of lower for little and improve sight lines at intersections. We could install low cost ticket machines that would have a different color. The qualifying cars would be on a list and/or there could be a special tab for qualifying cars.
Parking meters could be used for the cheap spots.
Why do people like Michael M refuse to think sensibly about which tunnel option is best? Why cower before 'the deciders', 'the powers-that-be', the same leaders whose decisions produced a traffic nightmare of Seattle? I'll never get over how cowardly people like Michael M can be.
Sally Bagshaw lied. The Alaskan Way and Mercer will be overrun with 40,000 more vehicles a day trying to run 13 stoplights between Pike and King plus 3 or 4 stoplights in Lower Belltown and that many more in Sodo. This is a completely justifiable reason among many to question the Deep-bore tunnel. Michael M and too many others are “censoring” honest discussion.
Mayor McGinn is leading with mass transit instead of auto-only state highways, also parks, sidewalks, schools, broadband, etc. These issues are major contributors to building districts where densification occurs at the same time. What Republican party leaders are doing right now can be called real fascism. Turn your sights on those culprits, please.
Seattle is far behind in transportation design, Matt, and the major plans in place are indeed regressive. SR99 and 520 are car-centric. Their design is the result of expected increases of motor vehicles and traffic. The Deep-bore displaces 40,000 vehicles that now use SR99 AWV and redirects this traffic through the new (many-stoplights) Alaskan Way and high-density neighborhoods along Mercer.
You're right though about Seattle having an image of being green. The emporer wears no clothes.
[Wells], I agree – we're way behind. So let's kill the tunnel and 520 projects, build light rail, and densify. The council's announcement gives us power over them. When they act against their goals we can call them on it, and give those running against them in the next election fuel for their campaign.
You support a 6 lane cut and cover tunnel, claim it would cost less, and be better for transit, and that is 100% false. The bore tunnel, be four lanes, also comes with $170mm in transit upgrades, plus $15mm/year in improved transit options. The tunnel will basically serve as a north-south highway, while people coming from neighborhoods into the City will be encouraged, through better bus service, and less access to city streets through downtown, to use transit alternatives.
I've pretty much always favored a cut/cover tunnel to replace the AWV, Matt. I submitted maps to SDOT and WSDOT in early 2002 suggesting the simplest versions, more than a year ahead of WSDOT whose first two years of AWV replacement tunnels were so extravagant their costs exceeded $10 Billion; so expensive it indicates WSDOT never intended to build a tunnel of any kind. In March 2007, WSDOT's most complete proposal was the elevated monstrosity. I believe the cut/cover on that ballot measure was purposefully distorted in the public eye so its construction would appear an impossible imposition. I want to see more heads roll at SDOT and WSDOT.
On every engineering measure, a cut/cover tunnel offers more bang for the buck and does more good than the deep-bore. There's really no avoiding the mess of reconstructing Alaskan Way. What Seattle avoids with the cut/cover (more than the deep-bore or Surface/Transit) is adding traffic to surface streets.
How exactly would you enforce these parking changes and why would you penalize say, truck-driving contractors from outlying suburban areas for working or building in Seattle? Or are all of them just going to magically commute on Metro or start driving Priuses?
There is no transit $$$$$, it is still MIA and the Gov and legislature have shown zero interest in ponying up.
McGinn is an embarrassment. I don't even have the energy to rant about him anymore.
I know the cut-and-cover is your thing, but it's still a massive road-building project that doesn't reduce cars on the road.
I support either a 4-lane or 6-lane Cut/cover tunnel. The Deep-bore tunnel does NOT serve some 40,000 Ballard-bound vehicles at Western/Elliott, a traffic pattern and volume which is equivalent to Aurora-bound N/S highway traffic.
Stick your fingers in your ears and go “la la la, I can't hear you,” all you want, Michael. That traffic is going to make the new Alaskan Way suck. And, turning Mercer into a thru-corridor between Elliott, Aurora and I-5 to access the deep-bore tunnel will make Mercer worse. I'd say at least 5,000-10,000 more vehicles will stampede through Lower Queen Anne every day. You must consider these severe drawbacks.
As for transit, I'm not a fan of Sound Transit nor Metro. Funding additional transit does not mean the new service will be an improvement. My own design proposals for really improving transit service are nothing like what these agencies propose.
SDOT and WSDOT chiefs have long been utterly corrupt and mislead everyone about these projects. It's up to you, Michael, to think for yourself and admit the obvious – a Cut/cover is by far the better tunnel option, at any cost.
These things are a priority? From what I've seen there's been little to no hiring process and an almost exclusive hiring of all white males and some women by McGinn and those he's appointed to positions. Frankly, the race and social justice initiatives (which I see you're lampooning) appear dead with McGinn.
@ericabarnett – when will someone do a story on McGinn's dodgy hiring practices thus far? He appears to have completely abandoned the city's race and social justice initiative and hired almost exclusively young white men – primarily because they worked on his campaign. There's been almost no hiring process used for positions. I'm surprised this hasn't received more attention given the city's recent history of working hard to post positions in a wide range of places around the city (in order to target a diverse base of applicants). McGinn seems to take pride in his status as a true Seattle progressive and “man of the people” but this is one area where he looks more like a man of far past. I realize he's made Phil Fujii a deputy mayor – but even that cuts against McGinn's supposed anti-establishment status given Fujii's past work at Vulcan. What gives?
A cut/cover tunnel does more than handle existing traffic. It'll make the strongest seawall and most stable Alaskan Way surface. It'll keep traffic that currently accesses the AWV at Western/Elliott (40,000 vehicles daily) off the new Alaskan Way and Mercer Street through Lower Queen Anne and on to I-5. The Deep-bore displaces this thru-traffic onto those surface streets. If a tunnel is to be built, the cut/cover is simply better by far, obviously.
Mayor Nickels would probably support reconsidering a cut/cover if it came to it. Tunnelite studies were only preliminary in the March 2007 vote, so I suspect its impacts were exaggerated. WSDOT favored the elevated replacement monstrosity, but continued studies for another year and renamed the cut/cover design Scenario 'G'.
When did you start? — under which of your pseudonyms?
He also hired one of the city's most successful neighborhood business leaders — who happens to be African American — as his other Deputy Mayor.
We'd have to see statistics, not just pot shots, to know if there is a pattern.
So far, I count one really dodgy hire, who is no longer employed by the city. Mayor Nickels had a lot more than that, and Mayor McGinn is still stuck with some of the dodgy hires.
Hey, don't go against the talking script from Mr. Williamson and the Central Labor Council. (Hi, Steve!) Get back on script and lob meaningless epithets, backed by no logical arguments, at the mayor.
With all due respect, Wells, we voted no.
Please come back, Peter. Put the names of the city councilmembers up for re-election next year in a hat, pull one out, and run against her/him. I bet you'll win easily.