Hmmm…let me think….NO. The Monorail is down for the count this time and for all the right reasons. It’s current plan isn’t what the people voted for which is two tracks everywhere and it was to be paid off in a very few years. AND not the least of which is that I voted against it every chance I got. Now, even after it goes down in flames AND I did my constitutional best to keep this huge mistake from actually happening in the beginning I’ll still be paying for all the hype for something like 3 more years via the car tabs tax. Now that’s success if you ask me. If I thought that I’d be paying 4 years worth of taxes for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I might have considered more agressively out of the city of my youth.

Jay, you seems rational and well reasoned and it’s been fun debating with you. I would ask that you help in this effort to change people’s minds about the current contract. When the viaduct comes down, this line will very much be needed but in order to have it in time we must begin construction now, not five or more years from now.

It’s cool that on this issue of the monorail and Seattle’s transit future almost every position anyone takes carries lots of truth. It would be fair for every commute from each corner of the area to take the same amount of time to get to the city’s core. It would be great if everyone’s transportation choice was non-polluting. I just know that there is no free lunch. Even if this project or the viaduct project or the 520 bridge job were free to taxpayers the level of construction disruption would be terrible. I know…I’m short sighted.

A year ago I tried to figure out how to get from my North Seattle home to Redmond at times to match my work via transit or car pool. But there wasn’t anyone going my way and the transit took 2 transfers and lots of time. If I should have taken this “lacking” of mass transit as my personal indicator to begin my campaign toward every mass transit project that came along I missed it, because as example with the Monorail it’s not going to serve me AT THIS TIME. That’s I guess why there is such a split on these mega projects in the area.

If fuel prices reacted to supply and demand, and the city (all cities) were primarilly electric, what do you think would happen to fuel prices? And just because Seattle happens to have relatively cheap hydro generation now does not mean that as soon as it’s being more aggressively consumed that it’s prices won’t go up too…as we BUY power from generation facilities that use oil and coal or nukes to produce it. So for all the green people that are so excited about an electric system of transportation…it ain’t. It’s electric VIA coal and fossil and nukes. Maybe it’s not polluting in your back yard… it’s global. There is no free lunch. When I was 12 my dad wanted “us” to build an electric mini-bike, which I thought was really cool. It had acid in the battery that would burn through clothes and needed recharging often.

Jay, you must have noticed it during all your time on bicycle. Crown Hill to West Seattle, the Green Line would leverage the remnants of retail hubs, lot size, and street shape. It doesn’t require reshaping or decades of development to obtain ridership. I do expect to see a reshift of population as people wanting to have the reliability of grade-separated transit move to homes and apartments near Green Line stations, though.

I support a region-wide system, but it doesn’t preclude the need for something in Seattle. Perhaps you noticed that there are no freeways to Ballard or West Seattle? For the same reason, there won’t be regional mass transit. They’re not on the way to anything. Monorail will be the first real alternative (other then driving your Bayliner to downtown) for these neighborhoods.

Possible future monorail lines would continue the trend, providing links to other neighborhoods. I just don’t get why everyone is so strung out on regionalism. Why should it be faster to get from Redmond to downtown Seattle than Ravenna to downtown? Creating a regional network may address some commuting needs (and allow more people to live in sprawly areas), but it doesn’t deal with *community* needs as people move through the bulk of intra-city trips.

I’ll go on a bit of a tangent. It amazes me that anyone thinks depending on cars is a legitimate possible solution. I keep watching parking lots disappear from my neighborhood as new buildings are put up, taking 20-40 spots away each time. Unmetered streets get meters. Meter and private lot rates go up. It’s just going to get more difficult and expensive to drive to the urban centers of Seattle (and the region for that matter). Let’s work on the alternatives now, instead of after our citizens (and tax base) moves to a place it’s easier to live.

I am also dumbfounded by people who think that our bus system just needs more buses and everything would be rosey. They go on and on about things like the flexibility of bus routing versus trains. Well, today my bus got caught up with a hundred cars trying to fight through construction lane reductions on 4th. It was so flexible that it was cut off by a half dozen cars and missed a light. By the time we made it through the mess, we were ten minutes behind schedule and just at the beginning of the route. By the time we left downtown there was absolutely no more space on the bus, 40 or 50 people were standing in the aisle. I am not exaggerating. At the next stop, 20 or 30 people were waiting to get on and were sadly rejected. Will this get solved with more buses? Sure, people will actually be able to get on a transit vehicle, but it still will be no more reliable, and still would join the traffic jam on 520 with the rest. (Yes, I realize this specific anecdote supports regional transit. That’s why I support it too. On a different day I’d have an intra-city story, perhaps about what a crappy experience it is to get from Fremont to downtown, running from block to block to try to catch the disconnected routes.)

There is a point where we need to dedicate space in our system just for transit. I’m not convinced it’s significantly cheaper to use buses than light rail or monorail for that - or that space set aside for buses wouldn’t be stolen by greedy SOV drivers (see the HOT lane farce).

We need mass transit in Seattle now, and we need it for the future.

BTW, to Paul at the top, light rail construction has begun. Visit the area east of Safeco Field, or visit MLK to see it in progress.

The world’s population as well as Seattle’s will continue to grow. The oil that we use to get around will become more scarce and expensive. We can deal with it gracefully and prepare our area with an electric system that will protect a convenient way of life and a growing healthy economy. It’s only too late when people find they can’t get around anymore such as when the cost of gas takes too much of a bite out of what you make from the job you drive to. We aren’t there yet, but it’s coming. The clock is ticking. To kill this plan now means many more years of delay, years that could mean the difference between transportation independence in time for the coming situation or one that is truly too late.

I agree the funding plan was not a good one, specifically that we would have been paying too much in interest. That said, I think the plan on the table is worth constructing and we simply need to find additional funding to make up for the MVET shortfall.

An area wide system generally isn’t built simultaniously in every area. It’s built one line at a time. It evolves as do the communities it impacts. This is line number one and I would ask you to bring your criticism to the table to help this city step forward to cleaner air, a cleaner concious and a more livable life with healthy elevated transit. Standing still will cost us so much more in the future.

Sometimes I think that using things like rising gas prices to help bolster a point of view is so leveraged. Rising gas prices is political. Not having Federal money to build monorails and Alaskan Way Tunnels and new 520 bridges is political as we spend billions each month on bombs. Politics steers everyone’s thinking as we’re slowly brainwashed into good little civic minded city dwellers and just eat up the rationalle that’s crammed down our throats. Seattle doesn’t need to spend billions on 14 miles of this thing. It’s wasteful spending. I would be 100% in support of an area wide elevated system if everyone in the expanded region had to pay a percentage of gross income. One big plan that would maybe take 30 years to build. But everyone would move away to get away from the cost burden. I think it’s just too late for Seattle and elevated trains. I’m not sure that urban high-density is doable in Seattle. We got too late a start and the geographic setting simply presents too many problems for doing things in a cost effective way. I think Seattle is like a goldfish in a certain size bowl.

We all benefit from cleaner air and a lower dependance on oil. We all benefit from an economy not dragged down by rising gas prices. We all benefit by not supporting despotic oil rich nations on the other side of the world.

As gas prices continue to rise and get more and more crippling, those cities with healthy electric options will recover much faster than those without.

I commend you on riding a bike three times a week, but I’ll bet your portion of pollution from driving the other two days is much higher than my fraction amoung my fellow riders of bus pollution 5 days a week.