1. The state office of financial management has released data, broken down by state legislative districts, on the health of Washington state residents.
Using 22 measures of causes of death such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s, the new study[1] scored legislative districts and found which ones exceeded rates in the state as a whole (meaning, they did worse on life expectancy) and which ones fell below the rates as a whole (meaning they did better.)
The healthiest legislative districts, judging by OFM’s metric, were all in King County. In order of best scores, they were: the 41st legislative district which includes Bellevue and Mercer Island, the 48th legislative district which includes Bellevue and Redmond, the 43rd legislative district which includes Capitol Hill, and the 45th legislative district which includes Woodinville and Duvall.
Doing my own overlay here, but King County has the highest median income in the state at $75,000 per household (compared to the $60,000 statewide.)
The legislative districts with the worst life expectancy rates were not clustered in any county. They were the: the 19th legislative district which includes Wahkiakum and Cowlitz Counties in rural southwest Washington, the 3rd legislative district around Spokane, the 29th legislative district in Tacoma, and the 30th legislative district in South King County and Northern Pierce County—including Federal Way, Auburn and Des Moines.
2. In another new report[2] (and in a follow-up to yesterday’s Fizz on I-405 tolling[3]), the University of Washington’s Washington State Transportation Center, which is known as TRAC, has raised serious questions about a separate report showing negative impacts (slower commute times) that Republicans in the state legislature have been using to condemn I-405 tolling.
Accusing the Inrix study of cherry picking slower portions of the I-405 corridor, the TRAC fact check notes:
Individual general purpose segments within the corridor have shown marked changes that are different than the travel times reported for the entire length of the corridor. There are segments within the corridor, in both directions, that are more congested since the start of HOT lane operations. At the same time, there are segments within the corridor that are much less congested. Inrix appears to have selected two poorly performing segments on the corridor and ignored the better performing parts of the corridor. Given the fact that Inrix has data for the entire corridor, one has to wonder why Inrix did not include the rest of the corridor in its analysis. The omission of other corridor segments means that the Inrix results are a biased description of corridor performance.
References
- ^ the new study (res.cloudinary.com)
- ^ new report (depts.washington.edu)
- ^ yesterday’s Fizz on I-405 tolling (www.seattlemet.com)
