UW Urban Land Institute Reality Check

April 30, 2008

*As Written*

Good morning, and thank you Gene (Duvernoy, Cascade Land Conservancy) for the kind introduction.

I want to thank the UW Urban Land Institute, Tayloe Washburn, and the many other organizations and individuals who helped put this remarkable conference together.

And it is remarkable. We have in this room a kind of United Nations of interests�

More than 250 key political, business, development, community and environmental leaders from King, Kitsap, Snohomish and Pierce Counties.

And you�re all here to do a Reality Check�

�To exchange ideas� build relationships and coalitions�work your way to some �Ah-Ha!� moments�as you begin the hard work of confronting the biggest economic and environmental challenge of our time.

And that challenge is:

How do we plan for land-use, transportation and climate-change challenges we face in this region now and in the future?

And to help you on the difficult road ahead, I thought I�d get started with a little humor and share with you the eight dubious rules of planning.

1. When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly, efficiently, and decisively.
2. A computer might help with most problems, if it doesn't, a hammer will.
3. New plans must give reproducible results; they should all fail in the same way.
4. No new plan is a complete failure. It can always be used as a bad example.
5. No matter what the result of a study, someone is always eager to misinterpret it, and nobody is listening until you make a mistake.
6. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say however, will be misquoted; then used against you.
7. Teamwork is essential, it allows you to blame someone else and a good scapegoat is nearly as welcome as a solution to the problem.
8. And finally, never put a decision off until tomorrow that you can avoid altogether.

Needless to say -- make sure you throw out those rules -- and as for that last rule, I�m extremely grateful that you�re not putting it off until tomorrow.

Because all kidding aside, we can no longer afford to put off until tomorrow the search for solutions that we need today.

Let me talk for a minute about what is driving us to find solutions. It�s all about growth.

How are we going to accommodate the more than 1.7 million people coming our way in next 25 years and at the same time maintain our quality of life?

How do we accommodate the more than 1 million additional jobs we expect to create, and ensure we have the right transportation solutions and other infrastructure to meet needs of these employees and companies?

Increasingly, this beautiful region is a magnet for young, smart people who want to work for innovative companies or start their own in areas from renewable energy to health care.

We already have big, innovative employers like Boeing, Microsoft, and Amazon, to name just a few. And we know they will spark even more growth, directly or indirectly.

At the same time, we are seeing real growth in many, many other areas -- like Global Health, the life sciences, and alternative energy technology.

�Companies like VisionGate of Gig Harbor, which is collaborating with the University of Washington and the Washington Technology Center to develop 3-D imaging of biological cells, which will greatly improve diagnosis of diseases like cancer...

�Or Ener-G-2 of Seattle, which is working on ways to better store electrical energy to power the cars of the future.

And what about cars? What about transportation!

There was a time when this issue was pretty simple. Gas was cheap and buildable land was plentiful. Got a traffic problem? Build something � anything -- to move cars.

One-dimensional decisions were easy to make back then�And by the way, we�ve seen the result -- Los Angeles.

But now we live in a 3-D world.

We�ve arrived at a time when folks can�t afford to drive their cars as much because the rest of the world wants $115-a-barrel oil too.

We�ve arrived at a time when it no longer serves Washingtonians � environmentally or in their wallets -- to promote unchecked urban sprawl.

We�ve arrived at a time when, if we are to serve Washingtonians, we must look at all the dimensions of the 3-D movie called �Big Growth� instead of just reacting to it.

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is a good example. Everybody�s first -- conditioned response -- was to replace the existing capacity.
And. if in the end, that makes sense, maybe that�s what we�ll end up doing.

But myself and other leaders, in partnership with community voices, are now looking to see if there are new ways to accommodate vehicle traffic and make Seattle a world-class city � a city not of the 20th Century, but the 21st Century.

Maybe it will be more mass transit in combination with other steps.

We are working on it, and all I know for certain at this point is that the old viaduct is coming down in 2012 because it�s a safety hazard.

I know it is frustrating for those who want simple solutions�Who want one-dimensional answers to three-dimensional problems. Boy, do

I know it! But again, we can no longer look at transportation as a thing separate from growth and the environment.
Underlying it all is our beautiful environment. It�s the reason people want to raise families here and do business.

We have the usual challenges � garden variety air pollution for example. But they are compounded by the realities of global warming, and the need for this region, state, nation, and world to take decisive steps to meet the threat posed by climate change.

At the state level, we just put into law aggressive targets to ensure that Washington does its part - and more - in curbing carbon emissions, creating alternative energy sources for our vehicles, and transforming our economy into one where thousands of people make a living meeting the demand for clean energy sources.

This is not a dream. It�s the future, and we must embrace it.

The new law also reinforces the importance of helping Washingtonians find ways to reduce vehicles miles traveled to address urban sprawl.

It is in everybody�s best interest to direct future urban growth to walk-able, attractive, and affordable urban areas where citizens can live, work, and play. It is the best use of our transportation infrastructure dollars, and it helps Washingtonians.

I believe we are stuck with oil prices that make the dream of a home far from work simply unaffordable. Economic reality, if nothing else, will demand a different approach.

If sprawl ever made sense, it doesn�t now.

So we need your help, starting today, to design and find funding and efficient permitting strategies to create these future people-friendly urban centers.

In our current response to global warming at the state level, a key recommendation is to restore and retain the health and vitality of

Washington's farms and forests as important storage sinks for carbon.
And success in creating sustainable urban areas will help immeasurably to reduce the pressure on our farms and forests.

The solutions aren�t easy, but as many cities have learned � LA and Houston come to mind � the problems definitely do not solve themselves.

At the same time, we need to figure out ways within our urban areas to restore Puget Sound. Heavier density demands even smarter ways to reduce storm water runoff, which is among the big killers of the sound.

Our Puget Sound Partnership is tackling this and other threats to the sound, but we will need the help of all of you to make it work.

In fact, we will need the help of all Washingtonians to restore and protect the sound.

One thing I struggle with is the gross misperception that state government wants to force people out of their cars and into places they don�t want to live, rather than trying to keep Washington a place where people can afford to live and work.

For instance, some seemingly educated people are currently spreading the falsehood that our Climate Change legislation could actually limit the number of vehicle miles individual citizens are allowed to drive.

(The irony is that the real limit on a citizen�s freedom to drive is nearly $4-a-gallon gasoline.)

These folks interpret our targets for reduced vehicle miles as controls on individual drivers -- failing to realize that those measures are needed to hold us accountable as we work to give Washingtonians alternatives if they want them.

Never mind that forcing people out of their cars would be an unconstitutional intrusion on individual freedom, even if we wanted to intrude, which we don�t.

We want Washingtonians to work together � the Washington Way � to achieve smart growth. We don�t want to dictate how we get there. That doesn�t work anyway! We just want to make sure we all get there together � and I believe we will.

We must and will be pioneers in showing the world how to accommodate population growth and economic vitality without destroying the very reason people want to live and work here.

With the lessons you take away from your work today, I am convinced we can transform these challenges into opportunities for Washington businesses and a quality of life for citizens in this region and state we can all be proud of.

I see the Reality Check regional exercise as a starting point and foundation to turn the challenges we face into real opportunities for smart growth.

Many cities in the state have joined with cities across the nation to commit to the Kyoto Protocol.

So this is a very important time to put in place a framework of laws and incentives that will allow us not just to survive and meet these challenges, but to thrive.

Today your exercise and discussions will serve as the foundation for developing successful transportation, funding and land-use strategies that will help guide us in creating an effective 2009 legislative agenda and funding strategy.

I will closely monitor the report and recommendations coming out of
Reality Check. I ask all of you to work with me and all of us in state government so that together we can create a framework and legacy we can leave our children.

Thanks so much to each of you for the contributions you have made in past months and years, which put you in a leadership role and led to your being invited to today's important session.

I thank you for taking the entire day today to work together on these critical issues for our region, state and nation.

Finally I thank you in advance for the work I know you will do with one another and many others to make today's session not an endpoint, but the start of something very special for all Washingtonians.