By saying he’s pulling or canceling the monorail transit way agreement, Mayor Nickels’s monorail advisory ballot asks the same question that voters took up last year w/ I-83—should the city refuse to grant the monorail city right of way? The voters trashed that question last year with 63.5% saying build the monorail.

Now, given the bad news about the finance plan, Nickels (cynically, I think) is rolling the dice that siding with the anti-monorail crowd is politically smart. He may be in for a surprise. Here’s an e-mail that came in from longtime Seattle activist Curt Firestone that frames this November pretty accurately:

Not everyone agrees with having a monorail constructed from Ballard to West Seattle. But, we all know that the voters approved the idea of a monorail on four different occasions.

Now the mayor wants you to vote on it once again. This is a lame answer to a financing crisis. Instead, if he was sincere about ending grid-lock, he would be helping to resolve the crisis.  What could he do? Here are just a few thoughts:

1. Direct as much City money to the monorail project as the city is directing to the light rail project. This is at least $50 million.

2. Fund a monorail instead of a South Lake Union street car. Monorail moves Seattle’s commuters and residents. The street car will move downtown workers to restaurants for lunch. 

3. Cancel the requirement that the monorail must pay $ 1 million a year to run its rail though the Seattle Center.

4. Forgive all city sales taxes during construction.

I fear that our mayor may want to be remembered as Mayor Gridlock. What a shame when he could have given real leadership to our mass transit problems. 

Curt