Through the first decades of this century, the greater Seattle area had a secret weapon for fighting climate change: it let people choose to live closer to each other.

Using a study of neighborhood-level carbon emissions, Sightline estimates that new residents to the Seattle area produced about 5% less greenhouse gases from 2000 to 2020. That’s simply thanks to their metro area being better than any other in the United States at adding homes to existing neighborhoods.

The region eliminated about 1 million tons of potential greenhouse gas emissions basically for free: no government spending, no tax credits for efficiency, no carbon trading market, no carbon tax. This public benefit came just from reducing red tape and letting construction workers build the kinds of homes that people want to live in.

Key Takeaways

• By letting new homes locate in existing neighborhoods, the Seattle metro stopped some new and existing residents from being forced out of them. 
• This trend reduced those new residents’ climate impact, since people who live farther from each other tend to emit more greenhouse gases than people who live closer together. 
• Sightline estimates that new residents emitted 5 percent less greenhouse gases than they would have if they had lived in more sprawling neighborhoods. 
• This climate benefit, approximately equivalent to electrifying two-thirds of the cars in the City of Seattle, did not require a large government investment. 

Building those homes created jobs. Letting people live in them created economic growth, more location choices, and lower energy bills. The metro might have done even better, of course, if it had allowed more homes throughout the region; and it can keep improving in the future.

But for the economy of greater Seattle, this category of climate action has been better than a free lunch. It’s been a lunch the region got paid to eat.

Living closer to neighbors saves energy

In general, it’s a simple relationship: when people live close enough together, they use less energy and emit less greenhouse gases. Take it from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: “compact and resource-efficient urban growth through co-location of higher residential and job densities, mixed land use, and transit-oriented development (TOD) could reduce GHG emissions between 23% and 26% by 2050 compared to the business-as-usual scenario.”

This effect comes from three main factors: less driving, more energy-efficient buildings, and less displacement of nearby ecosystems by energy-intensive objects like pavement.

1. Lower transportation emissions

Cars and trucks are the leading source of greenhouse gas emissions in most states and provinces. Residents of the most compact neighborhoods—areas of apartments mixed with workplaces and shops, whether in cities or suburbs — drive much less than residents of spread-out neighborhoods of detached houses on large lots. “Infill housing reduces pollution by reducing driving,” as UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation puts it.

A Terner Center study finds that San Franciscans emit less than a third as much carbon from transportation as residents of the sprawling Bay Area exurb of Oakley, while making a similar number of trips for the same purposes. Another found that households in California’s suburban, single-detached neighborhoods drive more than twice as much every weekday as households in urban neighborhoods with high transit usage. And public transit usage increases with population density (among other factors). In places where few people live close enough to walk to the bus stop, transit can even be less climate-friendly than personal automobiles.

These emissions benefits also accrue to existing residents of a neighborhood that adds people, not just new residents moving in. When there are enough people in your neighborhood to support a grocery store or a new bus line, now you get to walk to the grocery store or take the bus to work instead of driving.

2. More energy-efficient homes

There’s no better insulation than another entire climate-controlled home on the other side of your wall. Urban neighborhoods are much more likely to have such wall-sharing multifamily housing, which one study finds uses 35% less energy for heating and 21% less energy for cooling than equivalent households in single-detached houses. (What’s more, multifamily homes generally have smaller floorplans, which further reduce energy consumption from heating and cooling.) 

3. Preserving—not paving over—carbon-sink ecosystems

It takes energy to make stuff, and spread-out cities require more stuff. One researcher at Delft University of Technology found that “urban sprawl accounts for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions” via increased raw materials in construction, less efficient land use, and higher consumption of goods and services. Sprawl also replaces previous land uses that can sequester carbon, while infill adds homes without destroying these vital carbon sinks: forests, wetlands, grasslands, farmland, and others. 

A tale of two ZIP codes 

Consider some (hypothetical) denizens of two different neighborhoods around the metro: Beth, a resident in Seattle’s Beacon Hill neighborhood, which features lots of apartments, local shops, and services, and is comparatively transit-rich; and Maria, a typical resident in the suburb of Mercer Island, which has mostly large, single-detached houses on large lots and a single commercial center on its north end best accessed by car. According to a 2014 study from UC Berkeley, Beacon Hill Beth emits 16.75 tons of greenhouse gases in a year, while Mercer Island Maria emits 25.05 tons of greenhouse gases annually — almost 50% more than that of her counterpart across Lake Washington.

Why such a big difference? According to the researchers, Maria used more electricity and natural gas, drove more, and consumed more goods and services than did Beth.

As the Seattle metro grows its population, one key for reducing carbon emissions is figuring out how to make adding a newcomer look more like adding a Beth than like adding a Maria. And the high home prices and rents in places like Beacon Hill show, via basic market supply-and-demand principles, that plenty more Beths would love to live there if they could — i.e., if there were more homes they could afford there.

In general, the metro’s more populous urban neighborhoods are full of Beths (the dotted regions below, clustered along the I-5 spine), and its less populous suburban neighborhoods are full of Marias (the wavy regions below, often along the water or east of Lake Sammamish). Over the last 25 years, strategies like the city of Seattle’s urban villages plan and other upzones across the region have channeled new residents into existing urban neighborhoods instead of sprouting new exurbs at the edge of the metro.

What was the climate impact of all those new people living where they ended up? To know that, you’d have to make an educated guess about what would have happened if Seattle had sprawled even more instead of growing inwards as much as it did.

If this were medical research, scientists might want to study twins separated at birth. It turns out that the Seattle metro has a twin whose similar origin but different destiny helps us imagine a hypothetical, more sprawling Seattle. It’s Dallas.

Everything’s bigger in Texas, especially the suburbs 

In 2000, the Seattle and Dallas metro areas were very different in the popular imagination: a tech hub of fleecy outdoors enthusiasts and an oil boomtown of truck-driving football fans.

In one way, though, they were unexpected siblings. Their populations were spread across the land in similar patterns. Specifically, if you parceled out their populations into buckets based on how close they lived to each other — their population density or concentration — and made a chart, you’d see almost the same shape. In both cases, the follow patterns emerge:

• Few residents lived in low-population density neighborhoods characteristic of more rural parts of the United States (picture a Vashon Island-like spread of detached homes separated by acres of farms and forests);
• Lots of residents lived above the median U.S. population density (picture something closer to Bothell, a mix of smaller-lot homes, duplexes, and scattered low-rise apartments); and
• A handful of people lived in neighborhoods with higher population density than just about anywhere in the country (picture Seattle’s U District, with larger apartment buildings along major corridors and plenty of small-lot multiplexes elsewhere).

Over the next 20 years, however, the two metros took different paths. Seattle added new residents across neighborhoods of all types, with both new neighborhoods and old neighborhoods growing a modest amount. Dallas, meanwhile, saw booming growth in its least populous neighborhoods, sprawl beyond the prior footprint of the metro, and a loss of residents from its most populous neighborhoods.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Dallas now live in neighborhoods that were farmland and open space as recently as the early 2000s, while already built-up neighborhoods have barely changed to accommodate the new babies, families, and workers arriving in the area. When new residents do manage to arrive in old neighborhoods across the Dallas metro, they usually replace existing residents rather than growing the neighborhood: existing residents either pass away, move out to a new exurban subdivision, or leave the region entirely.

Dallas, then, offers Seattle a useful what-if. The two metros started at around the same place in 2000 but diverged by 2020: Dallas went out. Seattle went up.

Imagining a Texas-style Seattle — and its emissions 

Imagine a more Dallas-like Seattle since 2000: Seattle’s metro area grew just as fast as in real life but followed Dallas’s outward pattern. No downtown highrises in Bellevue or Seattle. No reinvention of South Lake Union as an urban hotspot. No walkable town center in Kirkland or Redmond. No spinal cord of eight-story apartment buildings along arterial streets. No three-story walkups near suburban transit stations. No explosion of mother-in-law apartments, backyard cottages, and townhomes.

Now compare the carbon emissions of real Seattle and Dallas-style Seattle using the same Berkeley study of ZIP code-level emissions estimates, to get a back-of-the-envelope idea of the scale of Seattle’s specific growth pattern on Seattle’s specific emissions level. The main assumption: that additional residents of a neighborhood would, on average, emit the same as their neighbors.

Think of it like this, with Beacon Hill Beth and Mercer Island Maria from earlier. Say that Beacon Hill gained 100 new Beths (on net) between 2000 and 2020. At 16.75 tons of carbon emissions per capita, that’s 1,675 extra tons of greenhouse gases compared to 2000. But if instead, in Texas fashion, Mercer Island gained 100 Marias, the town would have emitted an additional 2,505 tons of carbon — far more than if those residents had gotten to live in Beacon Hill.

Like all research on the climate impact of where people live, Sightline’s analysis has its own assumptions, shortfalls, and caveats. Relying on a one-time snapshot of emissions disentangles population changes from other factors that change over time, but it also ignores how changes in population density would themselves affect per-capita emissions. Keeping the total metro population constant avoids conflating increased emissions with increased population, but it also essentially assumes that infill patterns don’t affect the number of people migrating from one metro to another, only location choices within each metro.

The question here: How much carbon do Seattleites save by being unusually good at welcoming more neighbors? The best answer Sightline can offer: about a million tons a year.

The benefit: Like electrifying two-thirds of Seattle’s cars  

Sightline’s analysis of the Berkeley ZIP code emissions model estimates that by 2020, the Seattle metro area’s slightly less-sprawling growth since 2000 was keeping 1 million tons of greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere every year, compared with what Seattleites would have been emitting if they had sprawled like Dallas. The region’s additional residents are 5% more energy-efficient than otherwise, due entirely to where they chose (and could choose) to live.

This happened on top of all the other climate action from people and governments in the Seattle area, from subsidizing solar panels to composting eggshells to weatherizing old buildings. And this happened essentially for free! A million tons of greenhouse gases is as much as you would save in a year by switching over 315,000 cars from gasoline to electric, or more than two out of every three cars in the city of Seattle.

As Sightline explains in a report on the Seattle metro area’s best-in-the-U.S. success at urban population growth over this period, the star of this show was the city of Seattle itself. In other infilling metro areas, like San Jose, suburban jurisdictions led the way on adding residents to existing neighborhoods. But here in the middle of Cascadia, Seattle proper was the standout performer. The average Seattle resident emits 6% less greenhouse gases than the average resident of the rest of the metro area, so every person who gets to move to (or stay in) the city instead of the suburbs shaves off about one ton of their annual carbon emissions. That’s even more than they would save by skipping a solo road trip to Dallas every year.

These findings reflect actual, real-world behavior by millions of people. Claims about immense emissions reductions often depend on immense uptake: “if every gas-powered car were replaced with an electric car,” “if the population density of a city doubled,” “if the meat substitute industry were substituted for the meat industry.” And indeed, if every Mercer Island Maria turned into a Beacon Hill Beth, we might expect emissions to drop by much more.

But in real life, where the Seattle metro added a handful of Beths to the mix instead of going all-in on more Marias like Dallas did, a 5% savings is a win worth celebrating. For the city of Seattle, which led the way, every additional resident who didn’t have to move to Woodinville is a mini climate victory.

Just one piece of the puzzle 

While this ZIP code model is a useful tool for estimating neighborhood-level emissions, it still excludes what actual emissions in the Seattle metro look like over time, which likely tell an even rosier story. In addition to the population distribution changes described here, other trends like less driving, more electric vehicle adoption, and energy efficiency upgrades are also reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the region.

Letting people live closer to each other connects communities, improves transportation options, and makes homes less expensive. To that, we can add that it fights climate change. Quite the list.

For those of us in and around Seattle, a bonus: though we can still do more to welcome new neighbors to our blocks, we can boast that to date, we’ve been doing it better than anyone else in the country. And it’s paying off.

Author’s note: Thanks to Good Measures for graphic design, CORE GIS for mapping, and Zack Subin for feedback on an early draft.

This is a crosspot that first appeared at the Sightline Institute. Find audio versions of Sightline articles on any of your favorite podcast platforms, including Spotify, YouTube, and Apple.

The post Seattle’s No-Cost Climate Pollution Cut first appeared on The Urbanist.

Takeaways: 

• Seattle renters are largely locked out of the cost-saving and comfort-improving clean energy appliances, like heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels.  

• Newly inaugurated Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson, a renter herself, could help change that, in part because the City she runs owns its electric utility, Seattle City Light. 

• New city programs could front the cost of heat pumps and explore new apartment-friendly versions; spread the word and benefits of induction cooktops; and legalize plug-in solar for balconies and patios. 

• These measures could allow renters to enjoy affordable, healthier, more efficient homes and would establish Seattle as a leader in welcoming more renters into the climate solutions fold.

Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson and I share more than a few things in common. We’re both parents to toddlers. Scandalously, our children’s grandmothers help cover a portion of sky-high Seattle daycare costs (though my daughter’s 2026 daycare cost hike just swallowed my in-laws’ contribution). We’re also among the roughly 50% of city residents who rent.

Seattle renters contribute less to climate-warming pollution, on average, than homeowners. Renters in the city are nearly twice as likely to heat their homes with clean electricity as homeowners, more than half of whom burn natural gas for warmth. Seattle renters occupy smaller homes than residents who own where they live, fitting more people in less space. Renters are six times more likely than homeowners to get around Seattle without a car.

(These data points are from the Census Bureau American Community Survey, 2024 estimates. I feel optimistic that Katie Wilson, with her transit background, will do everything she can to make the city safer and easier to navigate for bikers and walkers. This is one of the best climate bets she can make.)  

Ironically, though, Seattleites who rent are excluded from enjoying many of the upsides of the clean energy revolution.

Renters cannot lessen our rising electricity bills by adding solar panels to our rooftops. We cannot rip out our gas stoves in favor of healthier, better performing induction cooktops and ranges. We’d be laughed at, at best, if we asked our landlords to remove our baseboard heaters or gas furnaces and shell out tens of thousands of dollars for more efficient heat pumps.

At least, we can’t cash in yet. Mayor Wilson could change that.  

Mayor Wilson enjoys an unusual opportunity among her peers: the City she runs owns its electric utility. One of the largest municipal utilities in the United States, Seattle City Light could make or break the city’s climate goals. It could also create new ways for renters to participate in the clean energy economy.  

With Katie Wilson installed in City Hall, City Light could launch nation-leading heat pump, induction stove, and plug-in solar programs. For those of us forking over hefty rent checks every month, the mayor could let us in on cost-saving — and emissions-lowing — clean energy action.

Get City Light to front heat pump costs for renters

Converting homes from low-efficiency electric furnaces or baseboards (the most common heating sources for Seattle’s renters) to high-efficiency heat pumps would lower monthly heating bills by reducing electricity use by up to 75%. More efficient electric rentals would also free up space on City Light’s grid to connect the thousands of homes and businesses in Seattle currently burning fossil fuels, thereby reducing the likelihood that the utility will have to buy expensive, dirty energy in the event of an energy supply crunch.

Most of the United States’ electricity comes from burning fossil fuels, whereas roughly 90% of City Light’s power sources are carbon-free.

For the minority of renters who burn gas for heat (including your truly), upgrading to heat pumps would loosen our yoke to the fossil fuel price rollercoaster. Plus, heat pumps are cool; half of Seattle renters lack air conditioning, compared to just a quarter of the city’s homeowners, a figure with potentially deadly consequences as the region’s summers grow hotter.

Heat pumps are, however, basically impossible for Seattle’s renters to access. No renter will succeed in convincing their landlords to shell out the $15,000 to $20,000 the appliances cost. And renters are unlikely to afford the systems themselves even if a landlord consented to associated renovations. Seattle’s renting households earned less than half the median income of homeowning households in 2024.

Under Wilson’s leadership, Seattle City Light could launch an ambitious program to front the cost of heat pumps for renters. Renters would pay a monthly service fee to enjoy the equipment, but the electricity savings from the upgrade would offset the fee. In other words, electricity bills would go down while comfort would go up.

In these types of programs, known as “inclusive utility investment” or “pay as you save®,” participants don’t assume debt or need a credit check, unlike typical on-bill financing programs. The utility owns the heat pump until the renter pays their last service charge, at which point system ownership switches to the landlord. If the first renter moves, the next renter enjoys the savings on their monthly bill. Though the programs needn’t be limited to renters, the model resolves the so-called split incentive problem, in which landlords resist investing in energy efficiency upgrades because they do not pay the energy bills.  

Since the idea was developed in 1999, 20 utilities across 10 U.S. states, including Missouri, Kansas, and California, have active inclusive utility investment programs. If these places can do it, so can Seattle.  

Launch a window heat pump initiative for Seattle apartments 

Even if Seattle City Light fronts the bill, heat pumps are likely to remain out of reach to most renters at current prices. Plus, the dominant heat pump models, such as mini-splits, can be a poor fit for large apartment buildings and require a trained contractor and electrical panel upgrades to install. Nearly three-quarters of Seattle renters live in apartment buildings with 10 or more units, compared to just 13% of homeowners.

Window heat pumps (also known as saddle heat pumps or micro heat pumps) could solve that problem. These innovations plug into a standard 120-volt outlet, don’t require professional installation or renovation, and can cost 40% less than conventional heat pumps. Also a design challenge and successful pilot, the New York City Housing Authority plans to install 30,000 window heat pumps in public housing apartments. Boston recently announced it will follow suit.

But at more than $3,000 apiece, window heat pumps are still out of reach for most renters. Nor are they widely available for purchase. (I asked a representative from Gradient, one of the two window heat pump companies selling in the United States, if I could buy one as a renter. He said yes, but only because I am an “influencer.” News to me!) 

Plus, the models rolling out on the East Coast are designed for cold climates and therefore may be unnecessarily expensive for Seattle’s milder winters. Finally, they only fit in windows that slide open vertically, a more common window type on the East Coast than the West Coast.

Wilson could make Seattle the West Coast leader in apartment heat pumps. She could launch an initiative, co-led by Seattle City Light and the Mayor’s Office of Sustainability, to develop Seattle-specific window heat pumps, at a price point renters could afford. The city might provide grant funding or guarantee bulk procurement to help bring down initial prices. The initiative could also ensure Seattle benefits from parallel efforts, such as California’s new market transformation plan for window heat pumps or future pilots led by the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (of which City Light is a member).  

If successful, the initiative could open the door… er, window to Seattle apartment renters owning and controlling their heating and cooling.  

Spread the induction stove gospel

Induction stoves are now the best products on the market for performance, safety, ease of cleaning, health, and efficiency (just ask known climate radical, Wirecutter). But once again, they’re out of reach for most renters due to cost, wiring requirements, and that perennial difficulty of asking your landlord to upgrade anything.  

I have a gas stove, but I now almost exclusively use a $114 plug-in induction cooktop to protect my daughter’s lungs. Gas stoves emit a “cloud of chemicals” including cancer-causing benzene, asthma-causing nitrogen dioxide, and climate-warming methane and carbon dioxide. (Plus, it boils water twice as fast as my gas stove, helpful when I’m trying to outrun a macaroni-and-cheese-related tantrum.)

Wilson’s Seattle could give away these induction cooktops to low-income renters with children. The Mayor could also push Seattle City Light to educate its customers about the downsides of gas stoves and upsides of single-burner induction cooktops. Recent Seattle City Light newsletters offered ways for Seattle residents to stay cool during heat waves and lower their energy usage. Tips for healthier, safer cooking would be just another flavor of this kind of consumer guidance.

At the same time, under Wilson’s leadership, Seattle could participate in California’s new effort to bring more affordable, plug-in induction ranges to market, pushing so that the outcomes of that effort will benefit Seattle renters, too.  

And, Mayor Wilson is now a board member of the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, the region’s air quality regulator. There, she could drive the adoption of clean air appliance standards to benefit all Seattleites.

Legalize plug-in solar  

In Germany, renters can go to a big-box store, buy a small solar panel for around $200, plug the system into their home outlet, and start harnessing the power of the sun later that same day — all without needing to hire a professional installer. Millions of these “plug-and-play” or balcony solar systems are now connected to homes in Germany, making it possible for renters to offset a portion of their energy use.  

In Seattle, plug-in solar systems are illegal. A City Light representative told Sightline that balcony or patio solar products are not eligible for the utility’s interconnection process that rooftop solar systems use and that they introduce potential safety concerns, such as accidentally energizing a downed power line by sending electricity back onto the grid. (Germany has not experienced any safety issues with its millions of systems.) The only way to get in on the solar action in Seattle is by owning a roof or by signing up for a community solar program, which City Light does not currently offer. 

Mayor Wilson’s Seattle City Light could legalize balcony solar, taking a page out of Utah’s playbook. That state’s legislature unanimously legalized the systems in 2025 by creating a new class of portable solar generation devices (maximum power output of 1.2 kilovolts) exempt from utility interconnection processes and fees, and introducing safety requirements. At least one company, EcoFlow, now sells a plug-and-play solar product in Utah that boasts “anti-islanding” safety features to turn off the system in case of a power outage.  

Seattle’s summer sun is one of the city’s best-kept secrets. With a free, simple, and safe City Light program for balcony solar, renters could start to enjoy it in more ways than one.  

Wilson can make Seattle a green city for renters  

In Katie Wilson, Seattle elected a renter Mayor for the first time in at least 15 years, and perhaps ever (I gave up searching for one). While the city has boasted about its green bona fides for decades, renters have been mostly worker bees for this green credential, not recipients of its benefits.  

By creating new ways for Seattle renters to enjoy efficient heating and cooling with heat pumps, easy and safe cooking with induction stoves, and cheaper electric bills with plug-in solar, Mayor Wilson can make Seattle the model for pro-renter clean energy policies. And she may even reap some of those rewards herself. 

The post Op-Ed: Katie Wilson Can Be Seattle’s Climate Mayor for Renters first appeared on The Urbanist.

Washington’s first foray into providing cash rebates to spur new e-bike purchases left more than $1.6 million in unspent funds on the table after rebates were redeemed at lower-than-expected rates, a new state-produced report released earlier this month has revealed. The leftover dollars, which are likely to be rolled into the amount disbursed with the next round of rebates, remained on hand despite the fact that nearly 35,000 Washingtonians signed up for a chance to receive a rebate but didn’t.

The state launched its “WE-bike instant rebate program” this past spring after securing funding via a legislative earmark in 2023. The program allowed state residents to sign up for the chance at a $1,200 rebate or $300 rebate. The larger rebate was reserved for lower income households and required proof that a household is earning less than 80% of their county’s area median income (AMI) in order to qualify. The goal was to enable more residents to access an additional pollution-free mobility option, aided by funding from the state’s Climate Commitment Act.

Despite the added paperwork, 55% more potential bike owners applied for the $1,200 rebate during the two-week application period in April compared to the $300 rebate, which meant that only 10% of applicants successfully scored the larger discount. But of those who did, 84% followed through and made a bike purchase — in contrast with just 24% of those who won the smaller $300 rebate.

Under a legislative mandate, 40% of the total rebate funding was intended for the pool of $300 rebates, but in the end less than 13% of the total dollars handed out went to those applicants, after a sizable majority let theirs expire without buying a bike.

Despite offering more than twice as many $300 rebates via random lottery than $1,200 rebates, the state saw 1,880 rebates worth $1,200 redeemed, compared to just 1,087 rebates that were worth $300. Clearly, the larger rebates provided winners with a much bigger incentive to see their purchases through. The unspent dollars could have helped more than 1,000 more low-income Washingtonians to purchase an e-bike

This first attempt at rebate distribution, which comes on the heels of other programs elsewhere in the US, offers some major lessons learned for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). In rolling out a rebate program from scratch, the department faced an impatient public and had to significantly tamp down expectations for the program, given the relatively small pool of money that was set to be available.

The report notes that low redemption rates have been seen elsewhere when rebates around $300 were offered, citing a San Francisco bay area program and a Tacoma program, which was offered to residents who live along I-5 at the same time as the statewide WSDOT program.

“[T]he $300 rebate appears to have been insufficient for many recipients, suggesting that some explored purchasing an e-bike but ultimately found the cost prohibitive,” it concludes. “With prices expected to rise further due to recent tariffs […] these affordability barriers are likely to become even more pronounced for lower-rebate recipients.”

The limited program clearly did provide significant benefits. As part of the rollout, WSDOT partnered with the University of Washington to survey rebate program participants, finding that only 6% of residents who failed to win one of the $1,200 rebate went on to make an e-bike purchase. Only 8% of lower-income rebate program participants reported already owning an e-bike, a group that was found to be much more likely to use public transportation as their primary way of getting around. Across both the $1,200 and $300 rebate, 17% of program respondents reported owning no car at all.

“The program also measurably improved access for e-bike purchasers,” the report states. “44 percent of study participants who purchased an e-bike stated that owning an e-bike allowed them to go places that they previously did not visit. 68 percent reported using their e-bike for trips they would have previously taken by car, 46 percent for trips they would have walked, 36 percent for trips they would have biked, and 33 percent for trips they would have taken by transit. These results suggest that e-bikes expanded the range of trips participants could make and offered an alternative to vehicles, biking on a traditional bicycle, walking, and transit for certain trips”

What the UW survey did not find was any measurable impact on the amount of driving trips made by participants before and after purchasing an e-bike, a major question when it comes to gauging the effectiveness of the program as a greenhouse gas reduction tool. Survey respondents used an app to track their trips, with the program automatically determining whether participants had been travelling via bike or car with a 88% accuracy rate.

“Neither the $300 nor the $1,200 rebate offers produced a statistically significant change in daily [Vehicle Miles Traveled] relative to their respective control groups,” the report states, noting the limited scope of the study, which concluded after six months. “Overall, we found no evidence that rebate recipients substantially reduced their vehicle travel. […] These results suggest that while e-bikes may have expanded participants’ travel options and mobility, they did not replace enough vehicle trips to reduce overall driving.”

Other studies, conducted either by GPS or self-reported data, have shown a decrease in driving rates from e-bike incentives, including in Canada, Sweden, and Norway, and the report takes pains to note the limited amount of data from which conclusions can be drawn. But in context with the other data points shown from this initial round of rebates, e-bike purchases seem to be enabling Washingtonians who would have gotten around without a car anyway to dramatically improve their mobility and travel options.

“E-bike rebates may require longer time periods and/or complementary measures to translate increased e-bike adoption into measurable reductions in vehicle travel. Expanding funding for more types of load-carrying equipment or other bike-related accessories, such as add-on equipment for transporting children, might also affect the extent and type of e-bike usage,” it notes.

The chances of winning a rebate are likely to be much higher in the program’s second round, expected in 2026, after the legislature earmarked an additional $7 million for the program. Governor Bob Ferguson’s proposed budget for WSDOT, released earlier this month, rolls over unspent dollars from 2025 into that amount, bringing the total to more than $9 million. But it will be up to the legislature to decide whether to keep that amount in place, and the data learned from the initial round of rebates is likely to significantly shape that decision-making.

Correction: an earlier version of this story stated that Washingtonians who weren’t offered rebates had received rejection notices, when they were simply not notified.

The post Washington’s First Try at E-bike Rebates Leaves Thousands of Vouchers Unredeemed first appeared on The Urbanist.

In facing a $1 billion budget shortfall that was set to snowball to at least $7.6 billion over six years, lawmakers spent the session weighing a number of paths forward, including raising taxes and deferring long-promised highway capacity projects. For a brief moment, it looked like the legislature would finally have to grapple with more than two decades of decisions to prioritize highway-building, a fact that has led to a 2024 transportation budget where 12% of funding went toward debt service, leveraged to build past projects.

But in the end, getting projects like the extension of US 395 in Spokane (dubbed the North Spokane Corridor), the extension of SR 509 and 167 in North Pierce and South King Counties (the so-called Puget Sound Gateway), Clark County’s I-5 Bridge Replacement, and I-405 and I-90 widening moving forward proved to be the legislature’s top priority.

Those widening projects are all but certain to push the state further from its own climate goals, encourage more driving and increased suburban sprawl. At the same time, the choice to prioritize new infrastructure over existing means that the state’s highways, bridges, and other facilities will continue to fall into disrepair, maintaining the infamous “glide path to failure” highlighted by former state transportation secretary Roger Millar.

$3.2 billion in new revenue over 6 years

The newly approved budget includes a broad array of new taxes and fees, including a six-cent increase to the state gas tax, a luxury vehicle tax, increased vehicle registration fees and an increase to the state sales and use tax on vehicles. Fees for driver’s licenses are set to increase, as well as taxes on rental cars. Ferry riders will also see fee increases, as the 50-cent capital vessel surcharge doubles this fall and riders are also charged to recoup credit card fees.

Some revenue options were left on the table. An earlier proposal included in the Senate’s transportation budget to tax e-bikes an additional 10% in sales tax and to charge public transit vehicles additional registration fees was dropped, but the budget does move forward with removing the existing exemption for transit vehicles on the state’s toll roads.

On top of that, the legislature will start diverting 1% of the state’s 6.5% sales tax into the transportation budget, starting in 2027, a move that will yield around $300 million per year — funds that future legislatures could have utilized to backfill cuts to schools, health care, and other state services.

But many of those new revenue sources only needed to be tapped into in order to keep the highway megaprojects moving. The $1.4 billion yielded by the 6-cent gas tax increase, for example, almost exactly matches the amount of funding needed to complete the rest of the $2.8 billion Puget Sound Gateway project.

Out of the $11.8 billion two-year budget for the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), 36% of funds are set to be spent on highway improvements, most of which are geared toward expanding capacity. The budget also increases funding for court-ordered fish passage barrier removal — in compliance with a federal consent decree — adding another 9%. But without the highway projects, the budget crisis largely would have ceased to exist.

Even with all of those new funds, the budget still puts a number of prized highway projects on ice, delaying them into future years. A widening of SR 18 in Southeast King County has been pushed out, along with a widening of SR 3 in Kitsap County near Gorst, and a long-planned replacement and expansion of the US 2 trestle in Snohomish County.

Bipartisan agreement on highway capacity

Unlike the state’s $78 billion operating budget, negotiated and approved almost entirely among Democrats, lawmakers touted the transportation budget as a point of broader unity. Even as the Trump Administration takes every opportunity on the table to slash transit and other climate initiatives and prioritize automobile capacity and dependency, this bipartisan agreement at the state level didn’t seems to cause any introspection for Democrats.

“I’m proud that [the budget] reflects our bipartisan commitment as a Senate to invest in our infrastructure all around our state,” Senate Transportation Committee chair Marko Liias (D-21st, Edmonds) said Sunday. “We’re keeping our promises on the core projects that Washingtonians, in some cases, are watching under construction right now. We will finish the job on the North Spokane Corridor, on the Gateway, on 520, on other corridors that are really important.”

“There are compromises that have to be made, but I feel very good that we are moving forward on the megaprojects,” Senator Curtis King (R-14th, Yakima), the top GOP member on the transportation committee, said. Diverting a portion of the sales tax has been a longtime priority for King, and one he was finally able to make headway on this year with the help of Senate and House Democrats. King said he is also focused on getting those other deferred projects from the 2022 Move Ahead Washington transportation package, like SR 18, across the finish line in future years.

“I can assure people that those projects that were in Move Ahead might have been moved out a little bit, but our efforts are going to be to see that they are covered as well,” King said.

The cost of deferring maintenance

With funding for new projects maintained, the amount of funding WSDOT has to allocate to the preservation and maintenance of existing infrastructure will remain “essentially unchanged” over the next two years, though the legislature has signaled an intent to add $300 million (around 2.5% more in the context of WSDOT’s budget) over the 2027-2029 biennium. That means the state’s maintenance backlog will continue to only see around half of the investment needed to keep pace with needs.

“WSDOT is facing a steep, uphill battle as rising costs and budget constraints continue to hamper its ability to maintain Washington’s highways,” WSDOT’s accountability webpage, the Gray Notebook states. “Despite recent, significant investments from the 2022 Move Ahead Washington package, the agency has struggled in the 2023-2025 biennium, losing over $37 million in purchasing power due to inflation while attempting to address increasing demand for repairs.”

The failure of the 103-year-old Carbon River bridge into Mount Rainier National Park earlier this year is a very concrete example of the impacts of that lack of investment, and almost certainly isn’t an outlier. Across the four-county Central Puget Sound Region, the number of bridges in “poor” condition increased from 69 to 88 between 2020 and 2023, with 49 of those bridges owned by the state, according to data from the Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC).

Leadership at WSDOT have been sounding the alarm over this lack of maintenance for years, with former WSDOT Secretary Roger Millar, who left the job in January, offering a dire warning on the state of the transportation system on the way out the door. His predecessor, Julie Meredith, has picked up right where he left off, telling the Puget Sound Regional Council earlier this year how swiftly the state needs to turn its attention away from shiny new infrastructure and toward maintaining what exists now.

“Over the last 25 years, I’ve worked on capital delivery, and you’ll hear me say, we’re really fortunate to have worked on $16 billion of infrastructure, really important infrastructure, but that same level of investment has not been made in our maintenance and preservation program,” Meredith said. “We need to invest in our maintenance and preservation and it has been something that hasn’t been invested in, to keep up to a state of good repair.”

The state’s maintenance backlog is separate from that of the county and city road network, which in some ways is in even more dire straits given the lack of revenue tools available to local governments. Throughout the four-county region, the maintenance backlog for local road maintenance increased from $6.1 billion from $9.2 billion between 2021 and 2025, a full 50% increase in just four years, per PSRC.

A few bright spots in the budget for transit and safety

Though the overall structure of the budget doesn’t move the state in the right direction, it does have some wins for walking, biking, and transit advocates. Local grants for pedestrian and bicycle safety, including biannual Safe Route to School grants, have increased by nearly 70% to $165 million. This increase will be incredibly important in the wake of impending federal cuts to federal walking and biking funds over the next three years or more.

Washington’s transit agencies will receive a $9 million to fund additional transit service around the state in advance of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, 40% of which will go to King County Metro. With the City of Seattle doing very little in infrastructure upgrades to prepare for this major event, a cash infusion to run additional transit service will be a big way to keep people moving.

Supplemental funding for Kitsap Transit’s fast ferry between Bremerton and Seattle, maintained in the House budget, did not make it into the final budget sent to the Governor, meaning that additional trips including the entirety of Saturday service through the off season is poised to be eliminated if another source of funding isn’t found. The budget does include some funding for King County’s water taxi between Vashon and Downtown Seattle, though exact service levels aren’t certain.

An additional $5 million will go toward expansion of the state intercity bus network, also in advance of the World Cup. This amount is around half of the amount needed to implement the top recommendations of a 2024 report breaking down prime expansion opportunities for the bus network, but those upgrades will make Washington’s lifeline bus routes much more accessible to many.

An even bigger bright spot is a $100 million allocation for the state’s most dangerous state highway corridors. That funding is not allocated until 2027, and represents just one third of the amount initially requested by Secretary Millar last year to start to make changes to Washington’s “stroads” — corridors that are trying to be streets and roads at the same time, and failing at both. But if it’s maintained in two years, it would represent a big step forward for a state that has largely left its most deadly highways untouched even as it’s poured billions into new ones.

Deferring maintenance work to focus on highway megaprojects at this point has become de rigueur in Olympia. While there are no signs of that trend changing any time soon, at a certain point that lack of investment will start to translate into tough choices for lawmakers. For now, the era of megaprojects continues.

The post Final State Budget Puts Highway Expansion Ahead of Basic Maintenance first appeared on The Urbanist.

Right now, many tree activists are throwing shade on Seattle’s Comprehensive Plan, accusing it of “paving over Seattle” and cutting down trees for homes. As it turns out, Seattle is already pretty well paved over after dedicating a third of our city to pavement designed to move and store cars.

Rather than blocking new housing in the name of preserving trees, however, Seattle would be better served to meet its tree canopy goals by leveraging the land it owns, which is dominated by roads and on-street parking. By converting 120,000 of the city’s more than 500,000 on-street parking spaces, Seattle could meet its 30% tree canopy goal and distribute new trees equitably across the city. Today, Seattle’s wealthier neighborhoods have much more tree cover than poorer, more diverse areas.

It’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. Paris has taken on a similar pledge, promising to replace 60,000 parking spots with street trees by 2030. Paris spans just 41 square miles, so the equivalent goal in 84-square-mile Seattle would be double.

It’s also not the first time this has been put forward in Seattle. In 2018, Rob Harrison’s architecture firm proposed the same intersection trees concept, which unfortunately hasn’t been put into action at scale.

Seattle’s single-family neighborhoods, the very neighborhoods tree activists are trying to protect, were carved out of virgin forests more than a century ago. Today’s single-family neighborhoods are responsible for 89 acres of lost tree canopy between 2012 and 2021, the most of any zone outside of parks and open space.

The 2021 Tree Canopy Assessment report outlined the breakdown of our 255 acres of lost tree canopy. 46% of canopy loss was in parks, another 35% in single-family zones (where almost no net housing growth occurred) and less than 10% has come at the hands of multifamily development.

While ideas around solutions vary, a broad consensus in favor of expanding tree cover exists across urbanists, climate activists, housing advocates, and neighborhood groups. An alliance can be born with a solution that serves us all, adding both tons of housing and trees.

‘Paving to Planting’ would add 1,000 acres of tree canopy

Seattle is currently about one-third pavement — more than 15,000 acres of asphalt and concrete. These are the streets that you and I own, and the City manages. Despite a population of 800,000 people, Seattle has only 460,000 cars registered. Counting off-street parking structures and lots, Seattle can park more than 1.6 million vehicles at any given time, aided by its 500,000 on-street parking spaces. We have an overwhelming surplus of parking and pavement, so why not use some of that space to plant some trees?

The Paving to Planting plan should be integral to Seattle tree canopy strategy, in addition to the tree ordinance Seattle passed in 2023. This city’s 2021 tree assessment found the canopy had shrunk to 28.1% rather than growing toward the 30% goal. While the ordinance protects existing trees and encourages planting, it doesn’t guarantee Seattle will meet its canopy goal by 2037 since it relies on the private landowners to deliver. Buried in the back of the report, it offered solutions, including planting trees in the right-of-way as a method to grow the city’s canopy.

Seattle owns more than 15,000 intersections citywide, and 9,600 of them are on quiet, low-traffic streets inside our grid of neighborhoods. If we convert eight parking spaces into trees, build planted curb bulbs and roundabouts with trees, then each intersection can become 17 new trees. Doing this citywide adds nearly 165,000 trees. With a typical 16-foot diameter canopy, this would add approximately 750 acres of tree canopy in the short time it takes for these trees to mature.

Along arterials, we could convert intersections and trade eight parking spots for 16 new trees. With 4,200 arterial intersections, this adds another 67,000 trees and another 300 acres of tree canopy coverage. Tree species vary, and canopies can range from medium to large. The average October Glory maple will reach this canopy diameter in less than a decade. With a variety of trees to choose from, and canopies growing larger than this study provides, the canopy coverage has an opportunity to prosper even further.

By adding over 1,000 acres of tree canopy coverage Seattle would achieve 30.1% coverage with these changes alone.

Streets like Aurora Avenue are getting proposals to improve safety and livability. If we plant street trees along with sidewalk improvements and the protected bicycle network we desperately need, we could add another 100 acres of tree canopy coverage across 20 miles of road. The trees would be pleasant additions to our loud, busy streets — places Mayor Bruce Harrell’s One Seattle growth plan is targeting for housing. These trees would also offer safety for bicyclists and pedestrians, creating nice buffers between people and cars.

‘Paving to Planting’ is real climate policy

Pitting density versus trees is bad climate policy. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “the growing concentration of people and activities is an opportunity to increase resource efficiency and decarbonize at scale.” What the report concludes is that car dependency is a problem for the climate and density is the solution. Knowing this, it’s no surprise Seattle’s top source of emissions is currently personal vehicles, which contribute 52% of our emissions according to Seattle’s Department of Sustainability and Environment. Perhaps it’s time to pay attention to the elephant in the room and do something about it.

Paving to Planting would solve three issues with one policy:

1. Adding trees;
2. Reducing heat island effects; and
3. Curbing stormwater runoff.

Converting 120,000 of the City’s half-million on-street parking spaces to reach Seattle’s threshold for 30% canopy coverage is smart climate policy. Trading pavement for trees cover lessens the urban heat island effect and absorbs stormwater runoff that flushes toxic tire particles into Puget Sound, jeopardizing salmon runs and imperiling resident orca whale populations. Pavement is among the worst offenders in trapping urban heat and generating toxic runoff.

In contrast, replacing pavement with trees would absorb stormwater runoff rather than generating it, turning Seattle into a “sponge city.” This has the added benefit of decreasing the need for costly sewer upgrades and helping Seattle meet the federal consent decree requiring the city reduce combined sewer outflows into Puget Sound.

We shouldn’t be fighting more housing as we lower emissions, we should encourage it and find solutions that include trees. It takes hundreds of trees to absorb a vehicle’s climate emissions for a single year, and a car covers about as much surface area as one tree’s canopy. So, the swap seems obvious. With Seattle’s transit investments rising, the rate of car ownership in Seattle is in decline, with car-free households growing by the year and fewer teens opting to get their driver’s license.

New multifamily housing largely being added in transit-rich areas will only increase this trend. A recent report from The Seattle Times found that 90% of Seattle’s car-free households are renter households and, of the 180,000 or so renter households, only 2,400 of them rent a single-family home. Despite this fact, we place renters and density on car-centric arterials disguised as transit corridors and save the vast majority of our quiet streets for low-density, car-dependent single-family zoned housing.

As Seattle finally urbanizes these neighborhood streets and opens them up to more homes and a variety of uses, more of us can ditch the car and go for a short, sustainable trip to get anything we need.

Tree advocacy should be climate-focused

We all love trees. Plants make us happier; we love looking at the leaves in the fall, flowers blooming in the spring, and ditching the sun for some shade in the summer. You can’t force your neighbor to plant a tree in their yard, but we can do this in Seattle’s streets. We need to grow trees where people have access. We love the quieter streets free of the noise and mayhem caused by cars. This solution delivers on both desired outcomes.

By growing the city and reducing car dependency, this saves us having to account for trees to offset vehicle emissions and avoids having to plow over another forest somewhere else to build the homes the job market here demands. Seattle will have to add housing, and if we are smart about it, our policies can grow housing and trees simultaneously.

Now that I have planted the seed, here’s hoping Paving to Planting takes off.

The post Op-Ed: Convert Street Parking to Trees to Hit Seattle Canopy Goals Sooner first appeared on The Urbanist.

Seattle has a historic opportunity to become a leader in implementing intersectional solutions to the climate crisis – solutions that tackle deep-rooted inequities, bring down climate pollution, create high-quality skilled union jobs, and improve overall quality of life for many of our communities. 

On February 11th, voters have the chance to pass progressive funding for permanently affordable, green, and climate-resilient social housing. Proposition 1A, on your February special election ballot, will create a modest tax on Seattle’s wealthiest corporations to fund the Seattle Social Housing Developer (SSHD), created by a 14-point margin in 2023.

Prop 1A will enable the SSHD to begin building and acquiring permanently affordable, publicly owned, mixed income housing that is good for our climate and for our communities. It’s an absolutely critical step towards addressing both the housing affordability crisis and the worsening climate crisis. 

Like the rest of the country, Seattle is facing a persistent and unprecedented housing crisis. The chronically underfunded affordable housing system, although still needed, is proving to be insufficient on its own. Meanwhile, low- and middle-income workers and families face increasing challenges in renting, buying, and keeping homes. And the private real estate market, an industry primarily driven by the pursuit of profits, is certainly not going to meet our housing needs. 

At the same time, the climate emergency is accelerating. Urban sprawl, displacement, and buildings contribute significantly to our carbon emissions. Fossil fuels used to heat, cool, and power buildings account for over a third of our climate pollution, making this the fastest-growing source of emissions locally.

To add to that, the cost of living is exploding – rising rents, low wages, and predatory housing practices are pricing people out of the city and forcing them into long, polluting commutes. It is our nurses, social workers, minimum-wage workers, teachers, bus drivers, and other essential workers who are getting pushed out of Seattle. With transportation accounting for nearly 60% of our emissions, making the city more affordable for all is key to tackling climate change.

The housing crisis is a threat to our basic well-being, and especially so as climate change exacerbates instability and already existing inequities. Projections indicate that, without intervention, the city could face more frequent and severe heat waves, with up to 42 days above high-temperature thresholds by 2050. Having access to clean air and cooling during extreme weather like heat waves and wildfire smoke can mean the difference between life and death for many.

All of these problems disproportionately burden frontline communities of color. Black and brown households face the highest utility debts, rent burdens, and environmental pollution. In fact, poorly insulated homes and soaring energy prices are driving the highest utility debts ever seen in the US. The result is a cycle of displacement and economic instability. 

Social housing offers us a transformative path forward. It would provide stable, permanently affordable homes for our neighbors, prevent displacement, and curb urban sprawl. Adding more housing with essential services within walking, biking, or rolling distance, and allowing people to live where they work, are among the most important steps a city can take to bring down carbon pollution. 

Social housing would also reduce building-related pollution. All development by the SSHD is required to meet Passive House standards – a set of five building principles that require super energy-efficient, highly comfortable housing with excellent ventilation, which is absolutely critical during wildfires. 

Passive House standards are designed to drastically reduce the heating and cooling needs of a building, resulting in low overall energy consumption, which would also help us save on utility bills. Moreover, such construction results in extremely climate-resilient structures. The best part is that passive social housing – which would be permanently affordable and publicly owned forever – would create climate resilience for everyone, not just the ultra wealthy.

All of this would help combat a key source of climate pollution, while ensuring our communities have safe, healthy living conditions during extreme weather events. And the benefits don’t end there. Building and maintaining social housing would generate skilled, high-paying jobs, supporting our local workforce and economy. 

If the SSHD is to make this vision a reality, it needs funding to get started. Prop 1A will provide a consistent and reliable source of funding by taxing wealthy companies 5% on annual compensation over $1 million to any single employee – an amount these corporations can more than afford to pay. 

It’s no secret or surprise that the Chamber of Commerce is throwing its weight behind the deceptive and confusing Proposition 1B – an alternative that would take money from the existing JumpStart payroll tax instead of creating a new source of funding. Taking from an existing pool of funds, a proportion of which is earmarked for affordable housing, leaves less money for nonprofit housing providers. 

Prop 1B is nothing more than a thinly veiled effort by mega corporations to avoid paying taxes. It’s not sustainable or sound, and only perpetuates a scarcity mindset when what is desperately needed are new progressive sources of funding, like Prop 1A. 

Amazon and Microsoft have both dropped $100,000 backing the Prop 1B campaign. Again, not surprising because we already know wealthy corporations will do everything in their power to avoid paying their fair share. They are not fooling anybody. 

Let’s be clear, the Chamber of Commerce does not support social housing. They do not care about essential workers being priced out of the city, or the fact that rents have skyrocketed while wages have stagnated. They care about protecting their bottom lines and using their wealth to control politics – it mirrors what’s happening at the federal level too closely to ignore, and only further underscores the need to unite behind Prop 1A.

The bottom line is that to get on a path to climate, economic, and racial justice in Seattle, we need to build abundant, low-carbon housing in walkable, bikeable, and transit-connected neighborhoods. Building social housing is a significant step towards creating this healthier, more equitable, and more resilient city while tackling climate pollution head-on. Prop 1A gives us the best chance of ushering in this future.

Housing is a human right, a core element in human well-being and flourishing. It’s time we begin treating housing like the public good that it is. Vote yes on Prop 1A by February 11th for a thriving, climate-resilient city.

Editor’s note: The Urbanist Elections Committee has also endorsed a yes on Prop 1A vote. The Urbanist is hosting a meetup with House Our Neighbors at 6pm tonight, February 3 focused on Prop 1A.

The post Op-Ed: Prop 1A Is Seattle’s Opportunity to Lead on Climate Justice first appeared on The Urbanist.

The transportation budget crisis could turn into an opportunity for a reset, prompting budget writers to take a step back and evaluate whether the biggest projects in the state transportation budget — “highway improvements” that are largely focused on expanding capacity in the name of reducing traffic congestion — are the best investments for the state to be making.

On top of a budget gap to fill, the current maintenance backlog on existing state highways approaches $1 billion per year, with additional deficits facing ferry infrastructure and other state facilities. But so far, early signs indicate that state leaders are poised to double down on current priorities, even with few options on the table for new sources of transportation revenue.

Among those urging the state to change course had been Roger Millar, the outgoing head of the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT), who ended his nine-year tenure last week just as incoming Governor Bob Ferguson took office. Ferguson has appointed Julie Meredith, Millar’s assistant secretary for urban mobility and access, to head the agency, but in his final days on the job, Millar issued some departing warnings about the direction that state spending continues to head.

During his entire tenure, Millar was outspoken about the limited return on investment from expanding state highways through Washington’s urban areas, and the need to prioritize maintaining and preserving the system that already exists, while making it more resilient and safe. Last week, he gave one final presentation to the Washington Transportation Commission explaining why that shift is needed, noting that funding for highway improvements has always come first before other priorities in transportation budget negotiations.

“The paradigm currently is, ‘here’s our list of projects that we’ve committed to build — [the legislature’s] earmarked list. Fund that first and then what’s left? Well, we can put whatever’s left into operating the system, maintaining the system, preserving the system,'” Millar said. “That’s why in every budget cycle, maintenance is pushed out, preservation is pushed out, operations is not funded.”

That paradigm is also a primary reason that Washington’s complete streets mandate, which requires the state to close gaps in bike and pedestrian networks and make safety upgrades as routine maintenance and preservation work happens, has not been living up to its potential: funding levels have remained relatively low.

Millar pointed out that Washington’s population increased by over 35% in the past 25 years, and employment grew by over 39%, but the state only increased its highway network by 2.5% — at great cost to the state. “That suggests to me that the economy found it didn’t need additional highways to grow,” he said. “I think what the economy needed was reliable highways, and the reliability of our system is at risk today.”

“We have been expanding transportation capacity and adding to our infrastructure,” Millar said. “At this point in time, we desperately need to invest in our existing transportation infrastructure that has been neglected and is failing.”

Other states are starting to reassess their priorities, in large part due to increased awareness of the counterproductive impact that highway expansions have on their urgent climate goals. In 2021, Colorado passed a law requiring its department of transportation, along with regional planning organizations, to evaluate the individual impact of highway projects on emissions, a move that led to an expansion of I-25 through Denver being cancelled and funding instead being invested in transit instead. Minnesota is set to follow the same path, with a requirement that projects start to be evaluated this year, though the implementation details will matter greatly.

Though generally seen as a climate leader, Washington is not out-in-front on this issue, despite having had goals around reducing the collective number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) within the state in place since 2008.

Earlier this month, at a pre-legislative session press event focused on transportation, both Sen. Marko Liias (D-21st, Edmonds) and Rep. Jake Fey (D-27th, Tacoma), the chairs of the legislature’s two transportation committees, tied to downplay the focus on expanding the highway system, in response to a question from The Urbanist about whether the state needs to “rethink the way we approach the transportation budget in terms of prioritizing expansion over maintenance.”

“I do want to push back on the idea that we’re expanding our system. You know, the expansion that we’ve seen in my community has been light rail,” Liias said in response, touting the fact that new riders on Sound Transit’s Lynnwood Link are creating capacity for drivers on I-5.

Lynnwood Link has been drawing people to transit, with ridership rising to record levels after the start of service last August, and creating a network effect for Community Transit’s Swift bus network.

But in addition to the newly completed widening of 196th Street SW in Lynnwood (State Route 524), which was able to get across the finish line thanks to state funding, WSDOT is currently moving forward on a slew of capacity expansion projects in Snohomish County. Those include a $123 million project to expand I-5 between Everett and Marysville, a $39 million project to add lanes to SR 531 in Arlington and a $47 million project to add another lane to SR 526, a road nicknamed the Boeing Freeway. And then there’s the US 2 trestle replacement, a megaproject that has been forced to take a back seat to others around the state, but which is expected to cost approximately $2 billion. Liias contends the state has other goals in mind when funding those projects beyond creating capacity.

“The highway projects that we’re doing aren’t about expansion, they’re about economic development, they’re about safety, they’re about freight mobility. You know, we have to serve multiple needs in this system,” Liias continued. “And Boeing needs to get their products to market. The ports need to get their product, agricultural commodities, to market. We all need to be safer. I think we need to sort of think about our system in the multi-dimensional way it has, and that’s what I continue to prioritize.”

Rep. Fey, who has served as the House’s transportation chair since 2019, also jumped in to argue that the state is less concerned with expansion.

“I’m trying to get a project so that we can get goods from Eastern Washington into the Port of Seattle and Port of Tacoma, so they can compete in a worldwide marketplace,” Fey said, referencing the Puget Sound Gateway project, which is two separate highway extensions in North Pierce County and South King County.

Pegged at $2.7 billion, the SR 509 and 167 extensions will provide alternatives to I-5 for trucks from the two major regional ports via tollways.

“In addition, we’ve got a problem down where at any point in time could have failure with the bridge across Columbia River, one bridge of which is in a subduction zone,” Fey said. “So I wouldn’t call that adding to the system, nor what we’re going to have to deal with in the near, not that far future, right here at the Nisqually [River], where we’ve got some environmental problems and potential failure of the current I-5 bridge through the Nisqually. That’s not expansion, so it’s a balance.”

The so-called Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) across the Columbia is set to expand I-5 along a five-mile stretch on either side of the Washington and Oregon border by two lanes in each direction, replacing seven separate interchanges. Its $6-$8 billion cost is set to make it the single most expensive highway project in Pacific Northwest history, and sustainable transportation and environmental advocates have argued for right-sizing the project to focus simply on the two river crossings.

Last year, Washington and Oregon finally published the project’s environmental analysis, a document that ignores the impact of induced demand in its rosy projections of congestion relief. The IBR’s well-funded project team has long contended that it’s not adding real capacity because the new lanes are “auxiliary lanes” for drivers to use when merging, and yet those new lanes are expected to speed up traffic and reduce congestion, clearly making them expansion projects.

As for I-5 at the Nisqually River near Olympia, the state is proposing to move forward with adding a lane in each direction, for high occupancy vehicle (HOV) traffic, when it replaces the hastily-built highway bridge that was constructed in the 1960s. That’s despite the fact that an initial analysis on options for the corridor, completed with the Thurston Regional Planning Council in 2020, gave that option “the most negative score possible.” But adding an HOV lane is seen as a compromise measure in the face of pressure to go even further.

“There are people in Thurston County who have been advocating since before I became secretary for widening Interstate 5, from [Joint Base Lewis McChord] all the way to Tumwater,” Millar told The Urbanist in a conversation last summer. “What we’ve been able to do as a team is keep that expansion HOV lane, as opposed to a fourth general purpose lane. We could solve the problem of the river with a new six-lane facility [the existing size of the highway]. There’s a lot of pressure to make I-5 an eight-lane facility. That pressure is not coming from the DOT.”

Rather than debating which highway projects are and are not actually “expansion” projects, Washington could require they be evaluated for their climate impact, a move that would likely jeopardize prized and long-planned projects within legislators’ districts. But with the looming budget crisis, sticking with the status quo doesn’t really seem like an option. And trying to do so would likely be bad news for the state’s goal of eliminating serious and fatal traffic crashes by 2030, as well as the state’s ambitious climate goals, which call for a 45% reduction in emissions below 1990 levels by 2030. The first step is admitting that there’s a problem in the first place.

The post Facing Budget Crisis, Washington’s Leaders Downplay Focus on Highway Expansion first appeared on The Urbanist.

A new report from Transportation from America has found that the supposed climate-friendly Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) has, to date, resulted in increased emissions. In addition, it could potentially even undo some of the emissions reductions achieved under other legislation taking action on climate, such as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The bipartisan IIJA was signed into law in 2021, proposing $1.2 trillion in funding for transportation spending, as well as broadband expansion, clean water, and electricity grid renewal. One of the stated aims of the IIJA was to reduce the impacts of climate change from the transportation sector, particularly from highways. But Transportation for America’s “Fueling the Crisis” report highlights the ways in which the IIJA has actually contributed to a business-as-usual approach, with states continuing to spend funds on highway expansion and resurfacing projects.

“It’s useful to think of every new highway or new lane like a new fossil fuel power plant, guaranteeing emissions for years to come from the additional miles of driving each will induce,” report author Corrigan Salerno wrote. “Over $37 billion in IIJA funding has gone toward new highways and wider roads. Using emissions increase and reduction output modeling figures from the GCC’s Transportation Investment Strategy Tool, these projects could induce the equivalent of more than 77 million cumulative metric tonnes of CO2e [climate] emissions above pre-IIJA baseline levels from 2022 and 2040. This is equivalent to the CO2e emissions produced from running 20 coal-fired power plants for a year.”

States continue to dwell on road expansion

The IIJA is structured in such a way that federal funding is provided to states, who have high levels of flexibility to determine how this funding is spent. This was seen by legislators as an opportunity to impact transport emissions for the better, depending on states’ investment decisions. But with modern Republican leaders largely denying that the climate crisis is real, and many Democratic leaders rating it a low priority, most states have continued a highway-centric approach, in line with the status quo.

Donald Trump once again being in charge at the federal level will likely mean even more focus on highways. This will also create headwinds for transit and safe streets projects, stalling fledgling progress on clean transportation.

The Biden Administration awarded Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity (RAISE) grants to multimodal and safety-focused projects on a much more frequent basis than the Trump-era predecessor. However, the larger Surface Transportation Block Grant program is more deferential to state priorities and continues to focus on highway expansion — a trend sure to increase under Trump.

The Biden administration released a fact sheet when the IIJA passed, stating that the legislation “will strengthen our nation’s resilience to extreme weather and climate change,” and that it would “help reduce our emissions by well over one gigaton this decade.” However, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported at the time that contrary to Biden’s statements, the IIJA framework seemed to reflect an “incremental rather than transformative approach,” partially due to the concessions made in pursuit of political agreement. 

“The bipartisan deal,” wrote the CSIS, “Does far more for carbon-intensive roads and bridges than for fundamentally rethinking mobility,” an approach that would not lead to the climate-friendly outcomes touted by supporters of the law.

Three years after the IIJA came into force, analyses such as that from Transportation for America have now taken place that show the impacts of the legislation thus far. Contrary to the administration’s assertions and goals for the IIJA, the report is a damning picture of increased car-centric infrastructure: “States’ federal formula-funded investments made over the course of the IIJA could cumulatively increase emissions by nearly 190 million metric tonnes of emissions over baseline levels through 2040 from added driving.”

“This did not really come as a surprise,” Transportation for America’s Salerno told The Urbanist. “States have not really used that power to focus on carbon-emissions reduction projects, and instead we’ve seen states continue along the same path, if not slightly worse compared to previous years.”

The state of Texas was by far the leader in highway expansion and locking in climate pollution, followed by fellow Republican-led states of Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, according to the report. However, Democratic governors did not prevent Pennsylvania and California from joining the list at 5th and 6th place in transportation emission gains, respectively.

The reasons behind these results are complex. In part, the carbon emissions reduction aspects of the IIJA are small, when compared to larger programs within the legislation. In addition, Salerno said, “The culture of planners and also, the political systems that we have, as well as how folks are rewarded for how they use transportation funds, tend to lead to more highway expansion projects.” 

When many people are focused on car-centric transportation, using funds for highway expansion projects is seen as more politically expedient, and one way to solve the problem of congestion. This is despite significant evidence that expanding highways simply induces demand for more people to drive, and does not reduce congestion over the long run.

“The transportation system remains one of the most significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the US, but its emissions are projected to decline thanks to new policies from the Inflation Reduction Act,” the Transportation for America report states. “[But] those gains will be undercut if we continue to invest in projects that make driving the only viable mode of travel.”

In search of solutions

Transportation for America calls on policymakers to prioritize safety over speed, take a fix it first approach to roads, and invest in the rest: high quality transit, active transportation, and intercity passenger rail networks.

Fixing this problem and making wiser transportation investments will take “a whole of government approach,” Salerno said, and it could involve emission reduction requirements to nudge states to invest funds in a different direction. It could also take dedicated staff working on clean transportation and pedestrian safety. 

“When you put those sort of priorities as part of someone’s job description,” Salerno said. “I think that’s when you start to see the change really begin culturally.”

With support from Governor Jay Inslee, a climate hawk, the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has built out an active transportation division and sought to incorporate bike and pedestrian safety into more state road projects, with the state legislature adding a Complete Streets requirement to ensure investments are balanced.

WSDOT tapped Barb Chamberlain, a respected leader in the bicycling advocacy community, to lead the active transportation division. Chamberlain said the Complete Streets requirement has influenced how they spend IIJA funds and jumpstarted investment in street safety. 

“The Complete Streets requirement includes a set-aside of a minimum of 2.5% of federal planning funds for state and MPO [Metropolitan Planning Organization] planning, standards, policies, prioritization, and active transportation plans.” Chamberlain said in an email. As a result, “Federal dollars will support projects that benefit active transportation,” she wrote.

Transportation for America’s analysis found that high emissions projects are particularly concentrated in suburban areas. 

“Emissions tend to be where travel demand is,” Salerno said. “So the big loss is that there are these highway dollars that are going to these multi-billion dollar highway expansion-boondoggles, that could be going to building out infrastructure that supports active transportation and public transit options in more urbanized areas… “You’re giving the majority of people who already only have one option, more of the same.” 

Some states have set a good example, such as Colorado and Minnesota, who have both recently passed new climate and transportation bills that will influence state spending in a more positive direction. Chamberlain also explains that some of the benefits of the IIJA for their work at WSDOT have been in areas other than emissions reductions. 

“Updated language — this is small but significant,” she wrote, “An emphasis on safety showed up in updated policy language, new requirements for analysis and reporting, and dedicated funding in competitive programs. States now must set safety performance goals to reduce serious and fatal crashes.” 

The new language and priorities have translated into active transportation projects faring better in the process. 

“Active transportation facilities were included in many of the [recent] winning [RAISE] grants,” Chamberlain wrote. “And the criteria around safety and environmental benefits are places where inclusion of active transportation will help an application rank higher.” 

Nonetheless, even with a climate-friendly governor, a new active transportation division, and a long run of Democratic control in the state legislature, Washington State continues to invest in highway expansion. The state’s IIJA investments show that the climate has suffered, overall. State leaders have made a $7.5 billion megaproject their top priority, despite mounting issues with the project. The project would both widen I-5 and replace the Columbia River bridge in Clark County.

Despite opportunities to dedicate RAISE grants to transit projects, the state has mostly favored road widenings. One of the Evergreen State’s largest recent RAISE grant recipients is a road expansion project in Lynnwood, near the city’s new light rail station. While the bridge will feature six car lanes, it includes the bare-minimum-standard sidewalks and bike lanes.

The need for organizing and advocacy

Transportation for America is stressing that states need to take more steps to invest in projects that reduce emissions. This is a process that needs to take place at all levels.

“I think it’s important that advocates [for active transport] should involve themselves as collaborators. This includes DOT work and work with city officials,” Salerno said. “You can be the change and involve yourself as a planner.”  

A vitally important step is “identifying who are the advocates in existing state DOTs and city DOTs, and finding ways to empower them,” Salerno said. “I think it is crucial in moving the needle in these things because at the end of the day, it’s all people.”

The post Biden Infrastructure Law Mostly Funded Road Expansion, Leading to Climate Backsliding first appeared on The Urbanist.

The summer of 2024 was the hottest year on record, and cities have been increasingly forced to grapple with the impacts of climate change at the local level, including helping residents cope with heat waves.

Several Puget Sound cities have embarked on efforts to expand tree canopy. Bellevue recently joined their ranks, taking it upon itself to address the shortage of trees in some of its neighborhoods and limiting exploitative development practices citywide. 

In July, Bellevue amended several sections of its tree code, seeking to preserve more trees and encourage more plantings with new development. Bellevue is not the only major city in Washington to take a second look at their tree regulations. Seattle and Tacoma, two of the other largest cities in the Puget Sound region, recently amended their codes as they continue to tackle issues of housing affordability, urban livability, and the local effects from climate change. 

Trees are unique in that they are both a climate adaptation and a climate mitigation. Expanding urban tree cover adapts to climate change by moderating heat waves and helping to absorb stormwater in increasingly common major storm events, making cities more livable in a warming climate. Reforestation can also mitigate climate change by sucking carbon (the primary climate pollutant) out of the air and locking it into trees, while decreasing the heat absorbing quality of urban environments in the process.

Despite promises of maintaining what makes the Emerald City green, Seattle has seen a decline in its tree canopy from 2016 to 2021 (dropping from 28.6% to 28.1%). This is below the 30% tree canopy goal the City Council adopted in 2013 under their Urban Forest Stewardship Plan (UFSP). Compared to other nearby cities, Seattle’s tree canopy has deteriorated over the years compared to the 38% tree canopy of Redmond, and the 40% of Bellevue.

Seattle’s reformed tree canopy ordinance strengthened the code to protect urban greenery by expanding regulatory protections, making it more difficult to remove trees with a diameter of 24 inches or wider. If a tree over one foot in diameter is removed, the city requires a replacement of one or more trees that will eventually grow to have comparable canopy coverage – something developers would need to foot the bill on.

Bellevue’s recent tree code changes are a bit more strenuous, designed to maintain the 40% tree canopy coverage measured in 2021. Under the new changes, permits are now required to remove significant or landmark trees, and development proposals must attain a minimum tree density factor, allowing options for tree replacement. 

Insofar as maintaining current levels of tree cover in Puget Sound cities, these measures appear poised to achieve those goals. However, in trying to dramatically expand tree canopy, the amendments fall short. 

With their focus on low-density residential neighborhoods, Bellevue’s amended ordinances would not address the relative lack of tree canopy in downtown, putting barren areas like this especially at risk during hotter summers, as heat maps show. Even in neighborhoods where they apply, the ordinances rely on new development projects and separate incentive programs during redevelopment to spur tree planting.

Still, the tree canopy density requirements are a great model for other growing and developing cities in the Puget Sound, Bellevue enjoys a higher-than-average tree canopy that other cities lack. 

Take for example, Tacoma. The City of Destiny suffers from higher heat from its lack of tree canopy, especially in neighborhoods south of I-5. Only 20% of the City’s land area is covered by tree canopy, the least of all communities assessed in Western Washington. In the underserved areas of South Tacoma, South End, and Eastside, few make it above 20% tree coverage per land area. 

Downtown Tacoma is lucky to make it above 10%. The heat maps and tree data underscore issues regarding racial equity and the legacy of historic marginalization and institutional racism.

Trees are certainly an equity issue – historically marginalized communities suffer from a lack of infrastructure investment and impermeable surfaces. Trees are natural air conditioners, having a significant cooling effect that reduces temperatures in our urban settings. The scarcity of trees in low-income neighborhoods is why the urban heat island effect is worse in those areas.

Tacoma has set a goal of reaching 30% tree canopy by 2030, but has made slow progress. The ordinance the Tacoma City Council adopted in December 2023 funds urban forestry programs through fees on tree removals, protects large trees designated as significant or historic, and allows the planting of fruit trees in the public right-of-way.

Metro Parks seeks to develop an Urban Forest Management Plan and fund more tree planting in public parks with grants from the Department of Natural Resources. With gaps still present, Tacoma has taken steps to address its inequitable and sparse tree canopy. 

While cities like Tacoma would need to adopt similar ordinances like Bellevue’s to maintain what they have, they leave something to be desired in taking an active role in growing cities’ tree canopies. Cities like Tacoma with direly sparse tree cover need to take a more active role in growing their canopy.

Tacoma should incentivize and even consider requiring that landlords increase tree canopy over time, both through new building projects and upkeep of their properties. When it comes to reducing the urban heat island effect, replacing paved surfaces with trees would have a doubly beneficial effect. The city could partner with organizations for reforesting privately owned lands. 

Doing so would not only reduce heat-related health issues in the summers and grant cooler temperatures in historically marginalized communities, but would also prepare for the worst effects of future hotter summers. However, the root problem of climate change still needs to be directly addressed, and that stretches beyond local authority. 

While Bellevue’s local changes are positive, the need for bolder policy at the state, federal, and international levels are the only ways to tackle the fundamental underlying problem: climate change. As climate change continues to be tackled at an international level, cities need to focus their attention on local tree canopies to make cities in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere more livable.

The post Op-Ed: Expanding Tree Canopy Is a Climate Solution and Livability Boost first appeared on The Urbanist.

With transit funding one of the biggest recipients of funds from Climate Commitment Act carbon auctions, I-2117’s passage is likely to cause service cuts and cancellations and delays of transit improvements at agencies across the state, large and small. At a work session on the state transportation budget held by the state senate’s transportation committee held last week, Justin Leighton, the Executive Director of the Washington State Transit Association, called I-2117 the “biggest threat and risk factor” facing transit in Washington.

If CCA revenue evaporates, Leighton told legislators, $2.39 billion in funding over the next 16 years would be at risk. Most of that funding is included as part of 2022’s Move Ahead Washington transportation package, and it includes the largest direct state investment in transit service hours in decades, via the new Transit Support Grant program. To qualify for those grants, agencies had to adopt a zero-fare policy for riders 18 and under, a deal that every single agency in the state signed onto. Without the CCA, agencies wouldn’t have access to an anticipated $1.27 billion in support grants, and most agencies would likely return to charging for youth rides to recoup some of those costs.

Also at extreme risk would be $525 million for paratransit service and so-called “special needs” transportation services, $70 million for transit services serving Washington’s tribes and tribal lands, $262 million for bus facility upgrades and $262 million to help agencies transition their fleets to zero-emission vehicles. With state lawmakers already facing significant challenges in the coming years when it comes to balancing the state transportation budget, the prospect of these revenues being replaced by other sources in the near future appears dim — at best.

“This is a significant amount of money, that if the CCA is repealed, a lot of hard decisions will have to be made [at] our agencies about how they want to right-size our budgets,” Leighton said.

City governments from around the Puget Sound region have all started to weigh in on I-2117’s impact on their cities, when it comes to both city budgets and their ability to implement local carbon reduction plans. This week, Tacoma became the largest city in the state to have its City Council unanimously approve a resolution endorsing a “no” vote, following cities like Shoreline, Kirkland, Burien, and Redmond as well as the Port of Seattle Commission. But so far transit agencies have been relatively quiet, even though the impacts on their budgets would actually be much more significant.

Leighton showed legislators a map of transit upgrade projects around the state that are set to be funded by the CCA, including $50 million for Spokane Transit’s second planned bus rapid transit (BRT) line along Division Street, $30 million for the expansion of Community Transit’s Swift BRT system, including the planned Silver and Gold Lines and an extension of the Green Line to Downtown Bothell. $30 million is set to flow to King County Metro for bus electrification work, the RapidRide I Line, and unfinished improvements on the RapidRide H line.

The loss of CCA revenue wouldn’t be equally felt across the state’s 32 transit agencies. In August, Pierce Transit spelled out the direct impacts that it foresees if I-2117 is ultimately successful this November. The agency is particularly dependent on outside funding to expand service, given the fact that Pierce County hasn’t approved a local funding increase since 2002. The CCA is set to fund around 7.5% of Pierce Transit’s budget, and the agency would have few options to rely on if that funding were to evaporate.

“The agency likely would not be able to implement its Bus System Recovery Plan, slated to implement service improvements and expansion in phases over the next several years,” a Pierce Transit release noted. “Evening and weekend service and/or the frequency of how often buses arrive on certain routes may be reduced and/or not expanded.”

If I-2117 guts state funding for public transit, it won’t be the first time that transit investments have been decimated by a ballot initiative. In 1999, Tim Eyman’s I-695, implementing a $30 car tab and repealing the existing Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) was approved by voters. The MVET was the primary way that state government in Washington funded transit agencies at that time, with over a quarter of the total revenues raised by agencies around the state coming from the MVET in 1995. Despite a pending court ruling that could have invalidated I-695, the Democratic legislature enacted the initiative into law, blowing a gaping hole in the state budget, much of it impacting transit agencies.

State investment in the operating budgets of transit agencies has remained minimal since the early 2000’s, with no moves by the legislature to increase its level of support until the Move Ahead Washington package in 2022. If I-2117 were also enacted into law, that cycle would be set to start all over again, with few local revenue sources available to agencies, particularly those in areas where voters are not champing at the bit to increase sales taxes.

Ultimately, the impacts of I-2117’s passage would be felt far and wide across Washington state, worsening each mode of transportation. But transit riders would be left to bear a disproportionate burden from those impacts, even as they’re helping to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion. When Washington voters start to fill out their ballots in the coming weeks, whether they’d like to pull the rug out from under the state’s transit agencies is a big factor to consider.

The post Washington Transit Agencies Sound the Alarm About Impacts from I-2117 first appeared on The Urbanist.