Because it has its own right-of-way, the only time LRT is affected by traffic is at grade crossings, at which time it stops for traffic signals. Even in this circumstance, such delays may be eliminated by passing under or over the grade crossing. This is an expensive option, yet it permits higher speed and greater safety on the line. The benefits of this approach for each grade crossing are weighed against the costs during the planning stage. The greater the cost of a project, the more difficult it is to get funded.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit is currently developing an override mechanism in which a train takes signal priority upon approaching an intersection.

It is very much a train and not an ‘electric bus’ as you refer to it. The green line is being designed to have two cars that are connected, but additional cars can certainly be added to make the train larger in the future. The cool part about the connected ‘through train’ system is that you can walk from car to car with ease which would allow for a three or four car train to stop at a platform only two cars long. This is really cool since people can easily walk through the train to the available exits. It also makes it easier to move between cars if you have a bike or are in a wheelchair.

Let’s compare this to the NYC subway system of which I’ve spent a good time of my life on (and have enjoyed.) You can move between cars, but it’s not safe or easy. Because of this lack of safety, NYC can’t safely run cars that are longer than the length of their stations to add capacity. Those with bikes or in wheelchairs don’t really have the option to switch cars.

We agree that the funding did not work out as we had hoped. Revenue came in a third short which, frankly, sucks. The cost of the line though is within the approved range. What was unacceptable though was the financing plan. It sucked and got killed for sucking so much. So, now we have some options:

1. throw up our hands and scream that it’s hopeless and run away
2. try to find better better financiers who will give us better bonds, lowering the overall cost of the system
3. go back to the voters to diversify the funding
4. go back to the voters to change the line
5. go back to the voters to both diversify the funding and change the line

We have a construction team assembled and a contract on the table. My hope is that we can find better bonds and make this contract a reality. If they find that the revenue shortfall is too much to trim up the debt plan, then it should go back to the voters to diversify the funding.

After four votes, numerous community meetings, the assembly of a construction team, the negotiation of a contract and years of public debate and discussion, it’s time to build real rapid mass transit for this city (and build it in time for the viaduct to come down). Running away from all this work to pretend that everything will somehow be okay without rapid transit is simply self sabotage. I want Seattle to become a better Seattle. I fear it will become Detroit. The choices we make now will make the difference.

What we have here in this unbuildable plan are buses (electric ones, but buses nonetheless) on big view-blocking single-purpose bridges. But that doesn’t much matter. Even these electic buses on view-blocking bridges might be worth the sacrifice if there was a chance that any of it would actually become a useful rapid transit system.

But there’s little chance of that with these plans. And the problem is both aspects of the plans — both the construction plan and the financing plan.

Indeed, the construction plan and the financing plan are two different things, but one of the reasons the bureau trying to build this thing came up with such an absurd financing plan seems to be that they were trying to build something they could not afford with the money available to them.

I don’t see how they can fix the financing with this construction plan — especially since the source of funds was specified in the enabling votes. Are they going to somehow get more money without making people vote on the silly thing yet again? Or are they going to do something to cut more out of the construction plan which has already been cut to the bone, so that it no longer looks much like the vague plan approved by voters.

Yes. We should get cracking on rapid transit here. And as you have no doubt noticed if you’ve tried to walk in the retail core downtown or have driven south on I-5 “we” have finally (and far, far too late) gotten cracking. Rapid transit is being built as we speak. Finally. Too little. Too late. But it’s an evolution. And at least we’ve started on a practical and genuinely useful and versatile rapid transit system that we can begin to benefit from in a the reasonably near future.

There are a number of things wrong with your statements.

1. The construction plan and the finance plan are two different things.

2. These are not diesel buses, but electric trains. I have no idea where you got the idea that these run on diesel from.

3. The idea that monorail technology is untested is simply untrue. A number of countries have healthy working monorail systems including Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and there’s even one in New York.

I too would like to see more dual tracking as well as smaller footprints on the beams, but I’m not going to let the idea of perfect get in way of good. The reaction of some people, that since it’s not perfect we should throw the entire thing away altogether, is a bit immature and childlike. No transit system is perfect. It’s an evolution. It took the New York City subway system 100 years to get to where it is now. Maybe we should get cracking on rapid transit here too.

It’s true that, under this plan, the monorail buses would not get stuck in traffic. Unfortunately, they would get stuck all-too-often on their own guide-rail bridges. If just one of those deisel buses breaks down along the one-track bridges that make up most of the route, it would likely slow down the entire system. The broken car would somehow (and that somehow is of course not specified or paid for) need to be pushed off to one of the huge light-blocking overhead switching platforms built on lids over neighborhood streets along the route.

But even if the buses on thier single rail run perfectly, the highly optimistic schedule promised by this plan depends on near perfect timing of buses going in opposite directions. If one of them is just a bit late, another one or two would have to pull off onto sidings (and hope that the untested switches on those huge lids over city streets actually work) or wait at a dual-track bridge for the late car to clear the single track.

That’s only one of many things that make this pipe-dream a terrible plan. If this went through, we might be better off just moving the ugly viaduct from Alaskan Way to 2nd Ave, since the massive bridges built for the single-use monorail buses would be every bit as ugly the multi-use viaduct is now.

It’s a bad plan. It’s been a bad plan from the start. It needs to be stopped before more hundreds of millions are thrown away on it.

You are correct. The last vote was 63% of registered voters. It was the prior election that the dodorail won by 677 votes. One thing to remember is many people were confused about the wording of the Recall initiative. A “no” vote meant “yes” for the monorail. Many were confused and thought a “no” vote meant “no” monorail. Their own stupidity, but another reason I doubt the monorail had majority support. Not to mention the people who didn’t vote. They should have voted, but they cannot be counted as for or against. Therefore, the 63% of those who voted still represent less than 50% total support.

Regardless what it was last November, things have changed now. I speak from yesterday’s experience at the Ballard public meeting. Over 100 people signed up to speak starting at 5:30. When I left at 9:00, 60 people had been heard, and less than 15 supported the monorail.

Light rail should kick the busses out of the tunnels because those routes won’t need to be covered by busses after the trains start running. Not a problem.

Taipei I’ve never been to, but I know its density is much greater than Seattle’s. And so what it they have a monorail? It doesn’t mean Seattle needs one.

I agree it would be nice to have both sound transit and monorail. But we should focus on what works for the greatest number of people, what contributes most to relieving traffic congestion and getting people out of their cards, and what we can afford. Those criteria shut out the monorail.

We get federal and state funds to help finance sound transit. The monorail is SOLELY on the shoulders of Seattle car owners. A regressive tax if ever there was one. Why shouldn’t everyone pay? So many problems. So far to go. Kill it now. Spend the $$ more wisely, and not on a vanity project.