Stressed SkyTrain in Vancouver B.C..
Stressed SkyTrain in Vancouver B.C.. Charles Mudede

Learning From Vancouver's Bus and Rail Woes: If you want to get a very good idea about how small the planned investment in Link ($54 billion) actually is, and how it will not be enough to meet the growing demand for the future of transportation, which will certainly be public, all you have to do is turn to Vancouver, BC, a city that has a smaller population than ours but a metropolitan rail system with 43 miles of track (ours will still be less than 20 when Angle Lake Station opens late this month). Vancouver's SkyTrain is not long and active enough to ease the pressure that 364 million annual boardings exerts on its bus system. The buses there often inform waiters: "SORRY BUS FULL." And this sorry pass-up business apparently happens at all hours of the day. The root of the problem? All of the city's systems need more cash. In the way Seattle can learn from Vancouver's crazy housing market, it can also learn from its very stressed public transportation system. And thing the latter tells us is we must not be cheap when it comes to investing in Metro and Link. The transition from car dependency to that of bus and rail will require what, in the short run, will look like a very pretty penny. (I do recommend connecting this news item with the next one, which contains an important fact about the source of most greenhouse emissions in Seattle.)

As Seattle's Population Grows, Its Greenhouse Emissions Falls: The Seattle Times reports that between 2008 and 2014, our city's population grew by 13 percent, and yet its greenhouse emissions dropped by 6 percent. The post gives three reasons for this decline: greater energy efficiency in buildings, increased density, and warmer winters. My guess would be the second reason (more people living in a small area) is the most important of the three. The post also points out that the decline is still far short of the city's planned "58 percent cut by 2030 over the 2008 baseline." What is preventing the city from achieving this important goal? Simply cars (or what the author of the post euphemistically describes as the "combustion of transportation fuels"). The burning for fossil fuels for the purposes of urban mobility accounted for 66 percent of greenhouse emissions in 2014.

Follow the Global Money: Puget Sound Business Journal reports that Vancouver, BC's recent 15 percent tax on foreign buyers "is shifting the focus of foreign national buyers... to the Puget Sound region." Our market has no such tax, no capital controls, and rising property values.

Median Home Price in Seattle Is Now: $589,950. And the increased supply of houses and condos ain't helping much.

Home Prices in Tacoma-Lakewood Area Surged By: 10.2 percent between July 2015 and July 2016. This means the regional window for escaping Seattle's inflated market is getting smaller and smaller.

Everett's War on Poor Alcoholics Escalates: In an effort to clean its gritty image and to make life for the very poor as miserable as possible, the city of Everett is bent on banning "20 malt liquor brands or fortified beer products." This ban will be activated a few days before Halloween and impact 100 or so honest-to-god businesses. The bad thinking in all of this is that booze and not poverty is the problem. So to end the "blight of public intoxication," don't cut the poverty (too expensive), cut the supply of malt liquor (the cheap solution). Park and street drunks whose poison is Glenlivet will breeze through this ban.

History Is Being Made Right Now in North Dakota: Native Americans are confronting our country's suicidal addiction to oil in North Dakota. Blabbermouth has the story, which is being covered by The Stranger’s Sydney Brownstone.

Driver Fleeing the Police Crashes into Three Cars: The really important detail in this incident that happened in the Central District, and concerned two men, one of whom (the passenger) is said to have a warrant, is this: "[The driver] was going 50-60 mph." By common measures, that's not terribly fast, and yet in our dense city it caused an incredible amount of damage and put the lives of five people in danger. It is also important to note the cop did not chase the car.

Apple Don't Know Jack: