February 2004 [pdf version]
 Partnerships Play a Key Role in 2004 VISION 2020 Award Nominations |
The 19 nominees highlight important partnerships at work to improve the quality of life in the region and are prime examples of the admirable work being done to implement the region's growth, economic and transportation strategy. Nominees in the running are:
| Cedarbrook Corporate Training Center -- This northwest lodge style training center features SeaTac's largest urban wetland, pedestrian trails, landscaping, and community plazas within the city's urban center. |
| City of Renton Urban Center North Comprehensive Plan Amendments -- The City of Renton's work to amend its comprehensive plan to broaden the land uses allowed on the Boeing Company land in the northern part of the city's urban center. |
| Cross Sound Rideshare Initiatives -- A partnership designed to maximize ferry commuters' mobility options resulting in dramatic increases in ridematching and vanshare use. |
| Clean Air Bus Initiative Program -- A multi-year financing package to purchase hybrid electric buses, which can run without an overhead power source. They are 90% cleaner than the current dual mode electric diesel buses, use 20-40% less fuel, and enable joint light rail and bus use of the downtown Seattle transit tunnel. |
| Community Partnership Program -- A rideshare program built on partnerships with community organizations to provide transportation service for people with special needs, including a variety of paratransit services, rides to work for low-income people, and emergency taxi service to people in domestic violence situations. |
| Coulter Creek Heritage Park -- Partnership and planning enabled the acquisition of 1,200 acre parcel that connects existing parks and provides a permanent green buffer among urban growth areas in two counties. |
| Downtown Bellevue Plan Update -- Bellevue has strengthened its vision while focusing on the planning issues that face maturing urban centers including solutions for increased transportation demand and looking ahead to the next twenty years of downtown development. |
| East Main Street Design Strategy -- The City of Sumner developed this strategy to transform a former state highway into a historic downtown main street. |
| Economic Development Plan and Bickford Avenue Subarea -- A detailed economic development strategy for five different land use districts in the City of Snohomish. |
| Greenbrier Heights -- A public private partnership to create a vibrant, affordable urban community, which offers community and green space while protecting the natural environment and wetland habitat, on King County surplus property. |
| Greenwood Avenue Cottages -- Cottage housing is an innovative approach to providing moderate-density infill in single family neighborhoods. |
| Model Permit System -- A pilot program between the Snohomish County Economic Development Council and four cities, implementing a suite of process improvements to increase predictability, efficiency, and collaboration of land use actions. The new system sped up permit times by an average of 33% and has attracted new cities to the system. |
| Move It -- A youth led grassroots campaign in Issaquah and Sammamish to raise awareness about transportation options available to middle and high school students. The campaign led to the development of the Youth Transportation Action Council, which organized five events and created student-designed promotional materials. |
| Redmond Trip Reduction Program -- A public-private partnership to assist commuters in discovering and using transportation options that are available to them. It is the first publicly sponsored program in the nation to combine a commuter club, rewards program, and a dynamic commute mode tracking tool, all accessible on the Web. |
| Strategies and Tools to Implement Transportation Efficient Land Use -- A reference manual that details usable strategies to create transit efficient communities, including information about possible regulatory changes and financial incentives. |
| Traffic Gauge -- This handheld device connects to the Washington State Department of Transportation's traffic flow data to provide current congestion and incident information giving drivers the opportunity to choose an alternate route to their destination. |
| University Way Multimodal Project -- A key part of efforts to revitalize the University District neighborhood of Seattle, these street improvements feature the region's first in-lane bus stops which have improved access on one of the city's busiest pedestrian and transit corridors. |
| Vanpool Market Action Plan -- An in-depth look at the future of vanpooling in the region, including the development of market estimates, strategies to increase vanpooling, and plans for the operation support need to manage expansion. |
| Vanshare Program -- The program uses "retired" VanPool vehicles to bring groups of 3 or more to their transportation hub, freeing up park and ride spaces at rail stations, ferry terminals and transit centers. |
An 11-member committee composed of elected leaders who serve on PSRC boards and two regional experts will select the winners on February 11, 2004.
The awards will be presented at the General Assembly meeting on March 25.
For more information about the awards program, contact Michele Leslie at
206-587-4819 or mleslie@psrc.org.
February Open Houses for the VISION 2020 Update Scoping Process
We've received over 500 comments from you through the Web site, the
December 12 workshop, and response cards from the October VIEW. We also contacted nearly 1,000 of the region's residents in a public opinion research survey. Comments to date express strong support for the region's current VISION, as well as calls to do more through bold regional leadership on important issues such as the economy, the environment, regulations, urban centers, transportation and housing.
| COME TO AN OPEN HOUSE! WE'D LIKE TO HEAR MORE! | |||||||||||||||
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Kitsap County -- Thursday, February 19 Mountain View Middle School -- 2400 Perry Avenue -- Bremerton -- 5:00 - 8:00 pm Snohomish County -- Monday, February 23 Everett Public Library -- 2702 Hoyt Avenue -- Everett -- 5:00 - 8:00 pm King County -- Wednesday, February 25 Douglass-Truth Branch Library -- 2300 East Yesler Way -- Seattle -- 4:30 - 7:30 pm King County -- Tuesday, March 9 Auburn Public Library -- 1102 Auburn Way South -- Everett -- 5:00 - 8:00 pm Pierce County -- Tuesday, March 2 Tacoma Public Library -- 1102 Tacoma Avenue South -- Tacoma -- 5:00 - 8:00 pm |
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Regional Council Developing Supplemental Budget and Work ProgramThe process to develop the supplemental budget and work program is now underway. The draft supplemental budget updates the Regional Council's transportation, economic and growth planning activities for the fiscal year 2005. The Operations Committee, chaired by Executive John Ladenburg, is overseeing the process.
The Executive Board will consider the budget at its February meeting and will recommend action by the General Assembly at its annual meeting in March. Action by the Assembly in March gives the agency time to obtain grants necessary to fund the budget at the beginning of the new fiscal year, July 1, 2004. For more information, call Mark Gulbranson at
206-464-7524.
Save the Date!
General Assembly will be held on March 25, 2004, at Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Seattle Center. Highlights of the meeting will include the culmination of the scoping process for the VISION 2020 Update, election of the new PSRC President and Vice-President, action on the supplemental budget for FY 2004-2005, and the presentation of the 2004 VISION 2020 Awards. For more information, contact Sylvia Nelson at 206-464-7518.
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| City Level Data Reveals Local Employment Trends During 2001 Downturn |
Discussions about the economy have typically focused on the regional level, but it is important to take a look at the individual cities that make up the central Puget Sound regional economy. Cities can serve as catalysts of economic development, and jurisdiction level trends may indicate advantages or disadvantages for specific industries in terms of location, policies and other local conditions.
| TABLE 1: City Level Employment Change by Sector for the Cities with the Greatest Job Loss, March 2001-March 2002 | ||||||||
| Const/Res | FIRES | Manufacturing | Retail | |||||
| City | Total | % | Total | % | Total | % | Total | % |
| Seattle | (2,545) | -11.0 | (12,528) | 5.7 | 524 | 1.3 | (3,539) | -4.8 |
| Bellevue | (862) | -13.8 | (7,324) | -11.7 | 55 | 0.8 | (1,847) | -8.7 |
| Tukwila | (103) | -6.3 | (1,056) | -9.5 | (6,864) | -54.9 | (236) | -2.4 |
| Renton | (116) | -5.5 | (775) | -6.4 | (2,297) | -10.0 | (1,060) | -12.3 |
| Everett | (339) | -13.7 | 432 | -2.4 | (2,575) | -8.9 | (751) | -7.8 |
| WTCU | Education | Government | ||||||
| City | Total | % | Total | % | Total | % | ||
| Seattle | (6,184) | -10.5 | 203 | 0.6 | 844 | 1.6 | ||
| Bellevue | (467) | -2.7 | (16) | -0.4 | 158 | 4.3 | ||
| Tukwila | (170) | -2.4 | (34) | -7.8 | 16 | 1.1 | ||
| Renton | (331) | -6.4 | 115 | 8.3 | 263 | 7 | ||
| Everett | (333) | -6.9 | 203 | 7.8 | (142) | -2.0 | ||
| The employment data shown in this Trend is from the Washington State Employment Security Department's (ESD) "ES202 Series" with supplemental data from The Boeing Company and the Washington State office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The employment numbers represent covered jobs during March of the given year. Covered employment accounts for 85-90% of total jobs, including part-time and temporary employment, but does not account for self-employed workers, proprietors, CEOs, military, or other non-insured workers. |
Decreases in the region's Finance, Insurance, Real Estate and Services sector (FIRES), which accounts for many high-tech jobs, had the greatest effect on Seattle and Bellevue. Seattle lost more than 12,000 jobs from the FIRES sector, which accounts for almost half of the city's job loss during that time period (Table 1). In Bellevue more than 7,000 of the 10,000 total jobs lost were tied to this sector.
Seattle also lost a large amount of jobs in the Wholesale Trade, Transportation, Communication, and Utilities (WTCU) sector. In this sector, Seattle lost over 6,000 jobs, a third of which can be attributed to Communication. Despite its losses, Seattle remains the region's largest employment center.
Some of the cities that had the greatest losses in jobs were those with large concentrations of Boeing Manufacturing employment. Although the region has diversified and lessened its reliance on the Aerospace sector, The Boeing Company still has a very strong influence and can greatly affect the region with its downturns. Beginning in September of 2001, The Boeing Company announced job losses that lasted into 2003. Tukwila especially, lost the bulk of its jobs in the Manufacturing sector due to Boeing, with a decrease of almost 7,000, the largest decrease in Manufacturing of the cities in the region (Table 1). Renton and Everett also had the majority of their job losses in their respective Manufacturing sectors with decreases of more than 2,000 jobs each. Other cities not shown in Table 1 that contain Boeing employment include Kent, which decreased by more than 1,000 jobs in the Manufacturing sector, and Auburn which lost almost 2,000 jobs.
Table 2 shows the top five cities in the region that fared the best during the economic downturn. Three of the five cities, Bremerton, Poulsbo and Port Orchard, are located in Kitsap County. The largest gainer in Kitsap County between 2001 and 2002 was Bremerton. Bremerton added 631 jobs, an increase of 2.3 percent. Bremerton did lose jobs in the Retail, Manufacturing and WTCU sectors, but the gains the city made in the FIRES, Education and Government sectors offset these losses. Gig Harbor had the second highest gain adding 267 jobs, an increase of 4.9 percent. The largest annual percent increase occurred in North Bend, which added 213 jobs at a rate of 10.2 percent.
| TABLE 2. Top Five Regional Cities with Greatest Job Gains, March 2001 - March 2002 | ||||
Jobs 2001 |
Jobs 2002 |
Total Change |
Percent Change | |
| Bremerton | 27,080 | 27,711 | 631 | 2.3% |
| Gig Harbor | 5,438 | 5,704 | 267 | 4.9% |
| Poulsbo | 5,218 | 5,432 | 215 | 4.1% |
| North Bend | 2,074 | 2,287 | 213 | 10.2% |
| Port Orchard | 4,787 | 4,933 | 146 | 3.0% |
| SOURCE: WA State Employment Security Department, Puget Sound Regional Council. | ||||
Data presented in this trend is based on the most recent available data. The employment information lags behind a year due to processing time by ESD and the PSRC. Data showing the current employment situation will be available in fall of 2005.
For additional information on regional employment data, refer to the data products page under Data and Publications on our website at psrc.org. For more information, contact Kristen Koch at 206-587-5667 or kkoch@psrc.org.
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| 206-464-7532 - FAX 206-587-4825 - infoctr@psrc.org |
Servicios de Traduccion Disponible: 206-587-5062.
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