Seattle Axes Monorail Project 524
Sokie writes "This afternoon the Seattle City Council passed a resolution advocating the terminiation of the Seattle Monorail Project. This follows a recent recommendation by the mayor that the project be scrapped. Lacking city support, the project looks to be dead and the city council will request that the state legislature formally terminate the project during their next session. City councilman Richard Conlin noted that the $1 million per week tax collection required by the SMP would be enough to eliminate fares on the city's bus network."
Pressure from oil interests? (Score:1, Interesting)
Monorail fixation (Score:5, Interesting)
For some reason in the mid 50's monorails became equated with high tech, thus EPCOT and the Seattle monorail. All evidence suggests that there is nothing special about monorails. The fastest and most advanced in-use trains in Europe to this date still run on two rails.
Or is this just a case of "my monorail is bigger than yours"?
Doesn't sound dead to me... (Score:5, Interesting)
TFA:
Monorail board approves ballot measure
By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Seattle Monorail Project board has just approved a Nov. 8 ballot measure to shorten the proposed line, and run it from the Alaska Junction in West Seattle to West Dravus Street in Interbay.
The decision to send a ballot measure to voters came hours after the Seattle City Council agreed to advocate for the termination of the financially troubled monorail plan. Last night, monorail board members rejected putting forward a ballot measure or any plan to shorten the line. Mayor Greg Nickels had pushed hard for both.
"It's time for the people to decide whether they want to save the people's train," said Kristina Hill, SMP board chair.
The City Council today, in supporting Nickels' denial of street-use permits for the project, expressed frustration and anger at SMP's handling of the situation and refusal to come up with a ballot measure last night. They said they would ask the Legislature, which created the monorail agency, to dissolve it.
The deadline to submit a ballot measure is 4:30 p.m. today.
The trim to the planned 14-mile line would cut about $250 million from the $1.64 billion construction contract -- if the contracting team sticks with the project.
Pat Flaherty, president of the Cascadia team, said today his team doesn't want to keep working on the Seattle monorail unless the City Council and Nickels reverse course and actively support the ballot measure.
Take a stand against the taxation! (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Monorail fixation (Score:3, Interesting)
I hope they like driving... (Score:2, Interesting)
Which might just be a good thing, depending on your point of view.
Costs of Seattle Monorail were too high (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Seattle's downtown doesn't need one (Score:1, Interesting)
Now, me, I could care less if it was monorail, light rail, or pneumatic tubes, but traffic in Seattle is a nightmare. However, the people of Seattle have voted for a monorail no less than 4 times, and approved it every time, so the fact that the city council would just shoot it down like that is a bit disturbing.
Most ill-conceived project, ever (Score:5, Interesting)
The project is complete lunacy since the stations have no provision for parking/park and ride, and the route follows an existing bus line and would not be any faster than that bus line. And it would cost more per ride.
I could support it if they actually tried something innovative, like the Skyweb Express [slashdot.org], but as the project stands, it's just a solution looking for a problem.
I am part of the small minority of Seattlites whose home and work are in walking distance of the originally proposed line, and I can't see any reason to choose it, since it would cost me more to ride it than driving to work and paying for parking.
Re:Public Transit is Critical (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Public Transit is Critical (Score:3, Interesting)
As some one who lives in the Atlanta area and who lived downtown a couple of years ago, I whole heartedly agree. When I was downtown, it was so nice to get on the MARTA to go to work. If you live inside the perimeter, and by a train stattion, it's not too bad, but still nowhere near European cities or New York.
I really wish we would put more money into to system and have something like other cities. There's talk of a perimeter train liine. It'll operate on old easeways that the railroads used to use years and years ago. Which is ironic, this city was founded by the railroads.
Why hasn't anything been done about having more rails? Mostly people are pennywise and pound foolish. They don't want to pay the extra taxes but they are more than willing to dump money into their cars. And there's a lot of excuses about their schedules being too different and how mass transportation won't allow them to go where they need to when they need to (Really, that was an excuse that someone used!) Another reason is that there is still some racial issues. Mass Transportation is still seen as something for poor Blacks and some white folks don't want those people coming around - if a sation is built near them.
Why Seattle Needed the Monorail (Score:5, Interesting)
With Monorail, all you need to do is clear a path. Buy out business along the green line, no tunneling is involed. Plus im told that monorail can be converted to handle a maglev type of transportation. It was originally supposed to cost under 2 billion, but people didnt like the tax and decided to register their cars outside of KingCounty. This caused a severe drop in revene and prompted the monorail execs to resort to drastic funding (junk bonds, high intrest loans, etc) to the point where its going to cost over 10 billion.
We need the monorail (or some form of elevated transportation) because there isnt enough room to build more highways. The sucess of the monorail would have helped to extend it to other areas of King County such as Redmond or Tacoma. I used to temp at Microsoft, and getting to Redmond from Seattle wasnt really a problem, but getting home sure was a nightmare. Any minor problem, and your going to see backups.
King County citizens voted in favor for the monorail 5 times! And yet, its never gonna be built. Its beyond surreal.
Mostly right (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, you can elevate a LRT or put it underground. In both cases, the installation costs are an easy 3-5 x the monorail costs as well as taking 5-10 the space.
In monorail, the train wraps the rail. That means that it can not jump it. In contrast, think about how many of trains that we hear have jumped the track. If you follow the news, it happens every month or so.
Monorail takes up less space in the air as the rail is about the width of a sidewalk. In contrast, the width of a suspended LRT track, is wider than a normal road. So imagine a 2 lane road suspended overhead. Load, noisey, and very expensive.
Glad I don't live in Seattle Any more. (Score:1, Interesting)
On the other hand I went to Las Vegas this summer and their monorail [lvmonorail.com] rocks.
Re:Monorail fixation (Score:5, Interesting)
I worked on the noise & vibration analysis for the Sound Transit light rail EIR. One of the criticisms I heard over & over again was that the city should expand the monorail system instead of building a light rail system because the monorail would be quieter.
In the case of the existing Seattle monorail, this is completely wrong - the Seattle monorail is easily one of the (if not *the*) loudest surface-transit systems in the country. If you're a resident of the pacific northwest, all you have to do is listen to the monorail, then head down to Portland to hear their light rail system (which will be similar to the proposed Seattle system), it's no contest.
[As an aside, I can tell you about the first time I head the monorail. My boss and I were sitting in a car under the monorail guideway near the Space Needle terminus. All of a sudden, I head this huge roar, and the car started to shake. I seriously thought the rapture was upon us, until my boss said "here comes the monorail." Quiet my a$$]
In any event, rubber wheels (which is what the Seattle monorail uses) moving on a concrete or steel surface certainly makes noise - otherwise highways would be quiet. Depending on the exact configuration, it's not necessarily true that rubber wheels on concrete or steel is quieter then steel wheels on steel rails since train wheels are designed to have a very small contact patch to minimize friction, and hence, noise. And don't forget the additional radiated sound you would get from the elevated monorail guideway.
Re:Pressure from oil interests? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Monorail fixation (Score:5, Interesting)
First, a number of people here look at the monorail as a symbol of the city. We've already got one that runs a short distance from Paul Alen's EMP to the city core. It's pretty cool. A lot of people feel that we should extend the line that runs only a few blocks into one that spans the city. I happen to be one of these people. Springfield and the monorail song aside, building monorail is cheaper per mile than the light rail solution that's currently under way here too. I seem to recall that building monorail is 1/10 the cost per mile. I also know that large sections of this can be built off site and transported to the final location when it's convenient. In this way, the disruption to the people of the city is minimized in a way that it cannot be with light rail.
Second, and most importantly, we (the city) have voted by popular referendum 4 TIMES to have the monorail. Each time, large property holders in conjunction with the paid-off officials in the city government have waged a fierce battle to prevent this. They don't want the competition, they don't want their views blocked, the proposed route doesn't help them with their gentrification plan like the already started light rail plan does. I want to emphasize that..... FOUR TIMES we've voted to create the monorail.... FOUR times the city officials have attempted to block the project in favor of their light rail solution that's more expensive and more disruptive, but puts more money in the pockets of local developers. Someone above mentioned that we've already spent too much money on our sports statiums.... That's true, and also a little bit of a sore spot for me... Through popular referendum, the people REJECTED the stadiums twice... They were built anyway, against the will of the people, to support greedy team owners, leaving us with almost $100 million in debt on the old Kingdome which was torn down. Think of that again, we still owe money on a building that's been demolished so that we can build another new statium for the rich sports team owners...
Third, building the monorail allows for outside bidding on almost all of the project. I think that this is the clincher for why the city and state are opposed to the project though. When working at "grade" level, the city and state department of transportation groups get a cut of the project. I think that they're required to be in on the project, therefore they get the federal dollars into their budgets. For projects that go underground or above ground, they can be effectively eliminated from the project in favor of private companies which specialize in either tunneling or monorail building. For most projects, the city and state will fight tooth & nail to keep the project "at grade" rather than allow tunneling or a solution like the monorail. It's all about budgets and power. We're getting hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government right now to build our light rail project. It will be over 10 years of work and will be mostly at street level. I think the overall budget for the 14 mile light rail project is something like $2.4 Billion. The city officials love it.... You couldn't kill the light rail project any more than you could kill the "big dig" in Boston... It's all about pork.... That's exactly why I like the monorail and hate the light rail. Light rail is going to be 10 times more expensive and doesn't even span a major traffic route! Nothing's getting solved here in Seattle by building it and nobody's going to use it. Property developers are quickly snapping up properties along the route, gentrifying the poor neighborhoods that they placed the route in, they're going to make a killing... It's a boondoggle, plain and simple, and the monorail is competing with it, therefore they think the monorail must die.
In short, look for the monorail to win a record FIFTH public referendum, after which the mayor will attempt to find another way to block and/or delay the project. I hope the people here will not let this die..
The Biggest Obstacale to Mass Transit ... Suburbia (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason I suspect is that "old world" cities are far better suited for mass transit in the first place. Cities like New York, Boston and European cities were developed when transportation mostly consisted of walking. As a result, these cities tended to emphasize a "build up, not out" approach to development resulting in more compact cities realtive to their size.
Then came the concept of Suburbia....country living for everyone. Automobiles became affordable and cities started to sprawl. Now you have cities like Atlanta, LA, etc who occupy a far larger land area relative to their population then older cities. This means that building a mass transit network becomes far more expensive to build and maintain. It also means that unless it's a fairly comprehensive network (even more expensive) it's ridership will be relatively low.
This is best evidenced by the New York Metro Area. Mass Transit in manhattan is exceptional...you can get just about everywhere you want to go. Access in brooklyn and queens where building densities are lower isn't quite as good as manhattan, but is still pretty good. Transit access out on long island (which was developed with cars in mind) is good for going to and from Manhattan, but poor going everywhere else.
Now sure, there's no technological reason we couldn't build a comprehensive subway system out on Long Island, but low ridership compared to operating and construction costs would make it economicly unfeasable. All we can do is identify a few major routes along which rail lines would ease congestion on the highways. I imagine it's much the same for an Atlanta or LA.
-Chris
Re:Monorail... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Pressure from oil interests? (Score:4, Interesting)
They also flat out BRIBED city council members to do this. They infiltrated planning commissions and spent hundreds of thousands of Dollars on propaganda against building such systems all over the country.
Seattle had a wonderful, well managed mass transit system. It was called the Interurban railway. It covered everything from Puyallup and Tacoma to Seattle, the surrounding environs and even went up to Everett. You could hop a train for a dime in West Seattle, and be in Bothell in an hour and a half. It ran well for 25 years or so, then the Automobile manufacturers had several well-financed auto company freindly people elected to the City Council here in Seattle. That Council, along with the Mayor, suddenly decided that the system should be privatized after the market Crash in 1929. The purchaser? General Motors. They promptly stopped maintaining the track, the cars and the whole system altogether. It was shut down within three years after that sale.
This is not tinfoil hat stuff as you Nazis like to say, it was pure government corruption at the City and county levels. Its all pretty well documented. Seattle mass transit is a joke now. Hop a bus in Bothell for two bucks, and it takes three hours to get to West Seattle. Thats three bus changes, at $1.75 each. Its cheaper to drive even at todays gasoline prices. And it only takes a half hour.
I live a ten minuite walk from a freeway bus access station, what we call a Park n ride, and I would still need over two hours to get to my work on Spokane Street. Thats 17 miles. Buses dont run early enough for me to get to work on time, riding that system. I would have to get out of bed at 2 AM and be on a bus by 3:30 to be at work by 7, including walking 2 miles. After work, walk a mile (15 mins) hop a short bus ride to downtown, wait 20 minuites, hop another bus to the Central north side bus terminal at Northgate Mall, wait another 20 minuites, hop another bus to the park n Ride near my house. That gets me home a little after 6 pm. I have other things to do with my life than ride a stinking crappy bus with a bunch of other unhappy tired people all day. It is in fact, cheaper to drive. 20 minuites gets me to work on a good day, if traffic is snarled for whatever reason, that doubles. And its still cheaper.
Blow that smoke up someone elses ass. the so-called "conservatives" in this country have always represented the interests of the wealthiest corporations, actively work against anti-corruption laws and encourage corruption in local governments like the City Council and Mayors office. They do this all over the country.
I supported the Seattle Monorail. Then the monorail commission, stocked with former automobile executives and a couple tolken "liberals" estimated the total cost of the project at $1.1 BILLION a mile. So it was obvious from the start that the system was not ever intended to be built, and the project managers would do anything to prevent it from being built including exaggerating the total cost to the point where all the conservative sheep would start wringing their hands. Then they wouldn't allow anyone (meaning the public) to know how the money was to actually be spent.
We can build an nuclear powered, state of the art aircraft carrier for the price of each mile of that project.
I guess that corruption of the type I described above still exists.
Standard guage rail is MUCH better use of $ (Score:5, Interesting)
The technology has been heavily debugged over 1 1/2 centuries. The important components are in mass production. (Even custom rolling stock - if built in the standard way - gets much of the cost and functionality benefit.)
Standard guage also lets the line use heavy rail rights-of-way opportunistically - with no or only minor upgrades if the stock is self-powered, relatively minor upgrades if trolley or third-rail power must be added. Old rights-of-way are the right width and can be reactivated or re-railed. City streets ditto: You can put standard guage down a freeway median, convert a lane or two of an existing street or closed-to-traffic pedestrian mall, or even run rails IN a street and share the lane with vehicular traffic. You can bring intercity passenger lines to the same stations and platforms as your intra-city mass transit. In an industrial area or over bridges you can also do shared projects with freight lines.
Each of these factors can produce savings in the tens-of-millions to multiple billions ranges, both for the mass transit projects and sometimes for heavy rail partners.
Contrast that to non-standard systems:
BART: Deliberately designed with a non-standard guage track (using concrete railbed so it can't be changed later) so it could never be shared with freight. Custom cars designed by aeronautical engineers - whose expertese with aerodynamics and structure relates more to free-space flight than rolling rapidly on a surface within inches of structures, and whose experience with ROLLING involves only rubber-shod landing gear used for only minutes per flight at any speed greater than a crawl. Result: Abysmal ride. Cars with a replacement cost of $6 million EACH, currently only available from a manufacturer in France. No opportunity to share right-of-way with anything: Expansion requires purchase (or siezure) of a string of contiguous lots through the San Francisco Bay Area - perhaps still the most expensive real estate in the US.
Amtrack made the aeronautical-engineer new-design mistake on one generation of their passenger rolling stock, with similar results.
People-mover: A rubber-tired horizontal elevator. A dreadfully expensive toy for inner city entertainment/business districts. Useful mainly for inter-terminal transport in airports. Like Bart, the right-of-way can't be shared with anything.
Monorails also can't share their trackage with other services, or recycle existing structures (other than the space over existing rights-of-way such as freeway medians - and even there the supporting structures consume ground space). So you have to build the entire line and pay for the whole thing out of the project - making the fees you must charge (or the taxes you must steal) prohibitively high. The main advantage over railroads is their relative quiet and their lack of interference with traffic at crossings.
(I could go on with bullet trains and other inter-urban items, and comparison with air and water transit. But this thread is about urban mass transit.) Main point is that, for urban mass transit, standard guage rail for the long hops is a better deal than monorail or the other alternatives.
With one exception: The private automobile is usually a far better price/performance tradeoff than even trains or busses - even if you don't count the costs of lost passenger time from waiting for scheduled runs or transfer connections, or taking a non-optimal route due to lack of availability of a direct run. Even in those cities where the transit system is pervasive enough that it beats cars for some trips, there are always plenty of others where a private car beats the pants off public transportation on a cost/ride basis. A car goes from where you are to where you want to be, with many convenient route options, at a very low cost per mile traveled (even counting the cost of
Actually, planes are quite efficient (Score:1, Interesting)
It takes about 60 gallons (227 l) of fuel per passenger to get from New York to London on board a 767-400ER. The same volume of gasoline would propel an economy car about half of that distance.
Re:Monorail... (Score:5, Interesting)
Rural areas have fewer transportation needs than cities which means the transportation costs are considerably lower. Fewer roads, fewer streetlights, fewer traffic lights, fewer collisions...
Who needs a larger police force - the 600,000 people in Washington, DC or the 600,000 people in North Dakota? Who has a greater need for firemen and paramedics - 900,000 people in San Jose or 900,000 people in Montana?
That's why farms use wells and propane.
Municipal services? What is the cost per person of salaries of city employees alone in New York City vs the the metric for residents of Wyoming?
Nope... ever see the tax rates of suburban houses spike to pay for the new influx?
Nope... federal.
How many times have you caught the bus in rural Idaho?
Federal again. And local. And rural education is much cheaper than urban because:
a) the land for the schools is much cheaper
b) with fewer students you need smaller buildings - energy efficiency is easier to achieve
c) Not nearly as many administrators or lunchlady Dorris overhead
Re:Doesn't sound dead to me... (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh well, c'est la vie.
Re:Monorail... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:what is the point of mass transit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Deciding to go for a surface train vs tunnel or elevated is purely an economic decision. Surface is always cheapest, and it is generally the best decision where ridership (or population density) for the region cannot overcome the additional cost of a dedicated right-of-way.
Personally, I much prefer elevated systems to tunnels. Not much to see in a tunnel, and it takes additional effort to maintain communications systems. I don't think I have ever seen a subway system that provides as high of a quality user experience over an elevated system (obvious exception is really cold places like Chicago). Surface and elevated systems are easier for tourists and infrequent riders to understand. Subways are only really good at handling rush hour traffic between housing centers and work centers; they generally languish at bringing people into the city nights and weekends.
Lastly, the monorail vs LRT argument... it's best to pick the one that matches the city best. Monorail systems can be narrower, LRT's can get more passengers in a given length train. Hopefully someone actually did a traffic study and decided that the monorail would be better for Seattle.
Re:Monorail... (Score:4, Interesting)
Furthermore, you have to agree that it is certainly more efficient to provide emergency services to a large city, even if it is more expensive. A large city may have one or two police forces, while in rural areas every city and county has their own little fifedoms. Compare the official response to 9/11 versus Katrina (NYC: Mayor's in charge. LA: Noobody's in charge.)
But, if you actually broke out the numbers, it probably boils down to how you define "urban". An urbanite may see the exurban suburbs (usually created with massive transportaion and utility investment) as "rural", while an authentic farmer would probably see them as "urban".
Re:Monorail... (Score:5, Interesting)
You might say that subsidies ensure a stable domestic food supply, which is a strategic necessity. I wouldn't argue against that, but I can hardly see how you expect us to believe that farm subsidies help the consumer at the expense of the farmer. Clearly the opposite is true.
Re:Public Transit is Critical (Score:1, Interesting)
I have a real interest in public transportation. It helps the environment, it reduces traffic, and it simplifies (maybe even speeds up) commuting. As someone from the South, riding the Washington DC Metro when I was a kid was pretty fun.
But I've been to Toronto for a month, and it amazes me the way they link the bus system to the subway. The subway line itself is relatively small (but impt., since it covers the busiest parts of downtown), but the bus system is amazing (buses ply the main roads, which are straight and perpendicular, and they extend to cover most anywhere in the city you would want to go). The bus system was pretty reliable even though it was so expansive. It is so well done that unlike most places in America, people other than those who can't afford 'better' willingly use it over alternatives. (Toronto Transit map: http://www.toronto.ca/ttc/pdf/rideguide.pdf [toronto.ca])
I've also lived in Seattle for a couple of months, and I got a chance to listen to both sides of the Monorail debate. Traffic is pretty bad during rush hour. I-5 gets clogged with traffic. Commuters do use the buses during rush hour in downtown and along the dense areas up the shore northwards. But it's nothing like Toronto. Seattle can't have a subway, since the soil is too rocky. They started digging the tunnels before they hit impassible rocks, I think, which is why buses now use the 2-3 miles of underground tunnels. A monorail already exists that ends perfectly in the middle of downtown. It was built as a demo for the World's Fair (when it was hosted in Seattle a half-century ago), so it is only 3 stops long. For the people who live in Queen Anne and other rich suburbs north of downtown, the monorail might be the only feasible option for mass transit that would be palatable to those people. Seattle's bus system is expansive (but not nice; downtown's buses are the most confusing I've ever ridden), but buses never seem to be enough for upper-middle class people.
Meanwhile, I live in the RTP area, which desperately needs something more than an unconnected group of local area bus systems. Sandwiched between Durham and Raleigh, RTP gets hit by traffic from both sides during rush hour. I-40 and any road of decent length that runs parallel to it going towards RTP is usually clogged. The area has had a hard time accepting (much less coping) with the explosive growth that has happened for the past 10 years. The current regional rail plan (http://www.ridetta.org/Regional_Rail/Overview/Reg ionalRailTrainsitSystemMap.htm [ridetta.org]) was first met with some resistance, but I think that could change. The area is hitting a wall in terms of buliding more roads, which is what it has done to delay what I think is inevitable.
A local TV news segment on the rail said that it would carry on average 13,000 people (per day or per week, I forget.) One city official commented that the regional rail here would be a waste, and with the money used to fund it, we could buy a Lexus for each person who would ride it. Of course, that's a faulty argument because: 1. The same people won't ride it every day 2. The rail service will carry many more people during large events that lend to a spike in traffic (Carolina Hurricanes, NC State football games, NC State Fair). Having a regional rail would also be doing a service to people who just want to get about their own business w/o other people's traffic 3. Most importantly: That statistic doesn't count for all the future people and future generations who will use the system
If you agree, please support the incorrigible Triangle by sending your $0.02 here. http://www.ridetta.org/Inside_TTA/Customer_Service /custFeedbackForm.html [ridetta.org] Thanks!
Monorail?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
I live in Las Vegas at the moment and they put up a monorail last year... nothing but headaches.
BART in the San Francisco area is pretty darn good. It reminds me of the trains in Europe -- both England and France have excellent rail systems. Fast, quiet, smooth and reasonably priced for the most part.
Anyways... I've never heard why people keep building monorails. Is there some theoretical advantage that has yet to be realized?
Problem with private cars (Score:2, Interesting)
And although the point-to-point argument is hard to beat, it's only valid for a specific range of distances. For me personally, that's 10-200 km. Less than that, and I'll walk or cycle. More than that, I'll take the train or fly. When I arrive at my destination it might be handy to have a car again - that's what rental cars are for. But while I'm away, why should I pay for parking my redundant 'home car'? Here in the UK at least, airports and inter-city rail stations are well served by public transport - and expensive car parks. The cost of parking at airports or rail stations makes it worthwhile to take a little extra trouble in order not to leave my car at the interchange.
Luckily I live within cycling distance of several major rail stations and one airport (London City). Well, not luckily really, I choose to live in central London, and public transport is one of the reasons I made that choice.
Re:Monorail! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Public Transit is Critical (Score:3, Interesting)
This is a common myth. There's no reason the cities you mention in the southern United States can't have subways. Look at Amsterdam, which is below sea level, yet still has a subway system.
In fact, Houston has auto tunnels running beneath the Houston Ship Channel (one active, one decommissioned), but somehow people there think they can't have a subway line. It's just small-town thinking in a large city.
Re:Monorail fixation (Score:3, Interesting)
1st:
"Do you really think that nobody in Rainier Valley or Tukwila needs to commute to downtown Seattle, or that nobody needs to get to or from the airports?
Light rail's route through the Rainier Valley and Tukwilla is about gentrification, not transit. Not enough people need to make that commute to make either solution cost effective, neither monorail or light rail. People in the Rainier Valley and Tukwilla, by large measure, do not shop downtown or at Northgate and don't fly that often. I'd be really surprised if any significent portion of the residents there worked downtown too. Not a slight, just demographics. The airlines are attempting to flee the airport for Boeing field even as we're adding a third runway for them too, that puts them right next to the Rainier Valley, you could make that with a $2 taxi ride. The only cost effective solution is lots of smaller busses operating in the Rainier Valley and Tukwilla. This isn't very sexy though, and wouldn't really help turn-over any of the properties there, that's why I believe that it wasn't selected.
The major transportation problem in Seattle that needs to get solved is the East-West route across the lake. No solution addresses this, because residents along the East and West sides of 520 & I-90 are among Washington's richest households and have more than enough money to hire lawyers and kill any proposed project. In short, their neighborhoods don't need gentrification and they would resist a public transit solution, so nothing happens.
In the monorai's favor, it does address two very heavy routes, it would address West Seattle (there's really only one route there and back)to downtown and Ballard to downtown along 15th.
2nd:
...monorail officials were planning on paying for the line by selling 50-year junk bonds.
Monorail: $11.4 billion / 14 miles (SMP's June financing plan, see this Seattle P-I article)
On the surface this appears correct, but the vast majority of the $11.4 billion you quote is for interest on those bonds, not the actual cost. The original estimate of the monorail project is $1.75 billion, with 4 times that cost going to pay interest on the bonds.1 0_monorail01.html [nwsource.com]
From the following article http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/2309
The high interest cost is a direct result of the opponents of the project, who realize that one effective method of stopping the project is to spread FUD through the finincal institutions that might help to underwrite the project. Fear of lawsuit and court challenge is what has turned an otherwise solid municipal bond at low interest into a junk bond at high interest.
Further, the costs don't seem to be adjusted for time. Properties along the Rainier Valley are much less than those along 15th or West Seattle, and those properties were purchased a few years ago while the SMP is still fighting to get the right to purchase and get a financing plan. Had the SMP been given equal terms to light rail, it would be even less than it's 2 billion estimated physical cost (not interest).
I stay by my original price comparison, measured side-by-side, mile-for-mile, building monorail is cheaper than laying track.
Other Places, and other transportation systems (Score:2, Interesting)
I lived and worked in the Zurich area of Switzerland for almost two years: a city which is rightly credited with having the best public transit system in the world, and I can certainly attest to it. My actual place of employment was changed from one town to another (well, more like suburbs, really) during this time, but it made no difference.
Here's the routine: I got up in the morning, prepared myself, and then walked outside to the tram (electric) stop right outside my apartment. Electric trams run on all routes about every 4 minutes during rush hours, and at least every 15 minutes at all other times, and were specifically designed so that any user could reach any area in the city by walking no more than the equivalent of about 4 blocks. Took the tram two stops to a subsidiary rail station, where I could catch a train to the main Zurich Hauptbahnhof train station: trains every 5 minutes -- just enough to buy a coffee and a newspaper if you wanted. Three minute train ride to main station, then no more than a 5-minute wait for a local train to my work location (let me off no longer than a three-minute walk). If you miss one connection, another is along in between five and ten minutes. In addition, anyone (foreigners included) can buy a 'Half-Price' card at any major rail station, entitling the holder to half-price fares for ALL rail and associated public transit systems in the entire country -- including the municipal tram and bus systems of all major cities. So, despite working more than 20 miles away from where I lived, I had a no-hassle, enjoyable, clean, safe and restful trip every day. I actually looked forward to the commute, it was such a pleasure. And although my 'terms of employment' entitled me to a car provided by my employer, there wasn't any point -- owning a car in a city and country of such wonderful 'public transportation' was actually a downside, whose difficulties far outweighed the benefits.
The downside of the electric tram system (aside from the fact that you can't very well turn back time and install one in the middle of streets not designed for it) is that you have to again get used to the overhead electrical wires that many have come to dislike for esthetic reasons.
Re:Monorail... (Score:4, Interesting)
ag subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Farms therefore have incentive to overproduce, as evidenced by commodity prices (especially grains like corn, wheat, and soybeans) frequently selling below cost. Farmers narrow their losses, or even gain a profit, by producing more efficiently. So the motivation to be efficient is intact. Large farms get more subsidy and leverage economies of scale that allow them to produce more effieiently, thus the trend towards farm consolidation.
Because food prices are driven low by overproduction through subsidy, food is economically available to more people. The wealthy are gonna be able to afford food anyway. The "wealth redistribution" to which you refer is not so much from the government to the farmer as it is from the wealthy to the poor.
UI
Re:Monorail... (Score:3, Interesting)
Amazon.com corporate headquarters
A large slice of Boeing
Washington Mutual corporate headquarters
The Port of Seattle, largest port in the state of Washington and one of the largest on the West Coast
The University of Washington, one of the largest research universities in the country
Harborview Medical Center, one of the best trauma centers in the country
The University of Washington Medical Center, one of the best research medical centers in the country
oh, and Starbucks has their corporate headquarters here too. That's just off the top of my head. So Seattle does pretty well since it's a nice place to live and work, much better than say Ephrata, or Winthrop or Twisp, or anywhere else east of the eastern King County line. In fact once you get outside of King County you're pretty much outside all of the major economic activity in the state of Washington. What major companies have headquarters in Olympia, or Bellingham, or Spokane or Vancouver? Hmmmmm, that would be none.
As far as road money goes well in the last ten years King, Pierce and Snohomish counties, the largest and most urban counties in the state generated about $1 billion in revenue for the 29 smallest counties in the state.
As far as cities being a drag on their states if that is the case then why is it that the most heavily urbanized states are also the ones who pay the most in federal taxes [taxfoundation.org] relative to the amount of federal spending. Hmmmm, could it be because the large cities in those states drive their economies in a way that you don't find in Bumfuck, MT?