If you think about it, the Jew friendly cities all have good transportation.

Happy Yom Kippur anyway Seattle.

Well, since sound transit is REGIONAL in scope, rather than a strictly Seattle proposition that in all probablility would have been a cosmic joke when finally completed (the corners they were cutting to get to that price were too stringent to be functional) I think we're coming out ahead. Light Rail is not as glamorous as monorail, but that's what happens when adults are in charge of things.

But whatever your feelings about it are, at the end of the day, Monorail is dead. And it's not coming back. DEAD. D-E-A-D. At least we'll have something to show for our overruns on Sound Transit. All that monorail money was pissed away. Our own little Iraq war.

Time to close the lid on the monorail's coffin and plant it out in the field.

The Slog reader and contributor failed to cite the individualwho has been one of the central figures in the demise of SMP, the
current tunnel fiasco and Sound Transit cost overruns:

Mayor Greg Nickles of Seattle

Dammit, isn't it about time to give credit where credit is due?

---Jensen

Ah, yes. Adults live in the suburbs, and therefore we need a train to the suburbs. Since it's just us kids that live in the city, we can make do with the bus.

The so-called "Hipsters Should Plan Transportation" writes: Well, since sound transit is REGIONAL in scope, rather than a strictly Seattle proposition that in all probablility would have been a cosmic joke when finally completed (the corners they were cutting to get to that price were too stringent to be functional) I think we're coming out ahead. Light Rail is not as glamorous as monorail, but that's what happens when adults are in charge of things....

Time to close the lid on the monorail's coffin and plant it out in the field.

Wow, for someone who claims to support mass transit, you sure have a deep and obsessive hatred of monorail, whoever you are. You must work for Ron Sims.

Well, it's all academic at this point anyway. As a sincere mass transit supporter, I support both monorail and light rail. And I'm looking forward to seeing light rail reach Northgate and Bellevue in -- when? 2015? 2018?

Why Christopher, how immature of you! Maybe you're right about the suburbs versus the city.

Things come with costs. Spreading that cost out over a region, instead of just a city, and getting federal assistance to pay for it, is the way things get done. Not by cab drivers drawing X's on cocktail napkins, or however that legend goes. The only people who can do that are people like Eddie Carlson with the Space Needle - and then only because he was rich and well-connected.

It's the way things work, kiddo. Like it or not.

Yes, the monorail's dead, but the model was a good one: 3 levels of transit. buses 4 really local trips, something dedicated to longer, in-city trips (no reason why it couldn't be a monorail or a tweaked light rail), and light rail for regional transit.

ultimately, if the mayor wanted the project to work, it would still be alive.

"Wow, for someone who claims to support mass transit, you sure have a deep and obsessive hatred of monorail"

Oh yes. My hatred. You nailed it there. What a diagnosis! If I work for Ron Sims, you must work for Bill Frist....

I didn't/don't hate the monorail. I hated the way the whole thing was proposed, how it was funded, and how the SMP operated. It was the .com of transporation agencies: All flash and bullshit.

Sorry to disapoint the brain trust, but Seattle hasn't been that suckered since Henry Yesler took it to court over his corner.

dot com is right.

as for the $2.1B, the $2.1B was a for a scaled down system with fewer trains and fewer stations, and potentially chronically under funded. Josh's point still holds of course.

The real tragedy is that while West Seattle will eventually see light rail and be just fine, Ballard is left absolutely in the cold.

HPST Wrote:
"Light Rail is not as glamorous as monorail, but that's what happens when adults are in charge of things."
"At least we'll have something to show for our overruns on Sound Transit. All that monorail money was pissed away."

Hipsters, do please indulge us. Who were the adults overseeing the $1.5 billion and counting cost overruns on Sound Transit?

--Jensen

The "Adults" (and that was a bit facetious on my part) were the political establishment, both regional and federal, who had buy in on the plan. There were no such grown-ups on the Monorail's side.

But realistically, trying to build a public works project like Link light rail (or, to a lesser extent, the monorail) in a built-up urban environment, in one of the most expensive cities in the nation, which also happens to have unique geographical and seismic challenges, makes the project ripe for overruns, legitimate and otherwise. Anyone who wouldn't believe it wouldn't happen is naive at best.

Bottom line is this: Sound Transit could weather it - and weather a lot more than SMP ever did - and survive. Monorail - again partly because of its Seattle-only scope, and party because of lack of political buy-in - couldn't.

Must be a lotta hipsters in this town, see'n as they won 4 popular votes.

So it sure is good we have an all-beige political class that can hang tight for a generation or two without ever descending to institute the creative will of the public.

Maybe if we built an interlocking chain of sports stadia from Ballard to West Seattle. Maybe incorporate a floating Nascar Track and series of Golf resorts in the 520 bridge renovation. 'Go along to get along', is that the meaningful lesson of adulthood you mean to teach us hipster-hater?

HSPT Wrote:
"Bottom line is this: Sound Transit could weather it - and weather a lot more than SMP ever did"

Sorry Hipsters, but you begged the fucking question. Who is responsible for the $1.5 billion cost overrun on Sound Transit?

--Jensen

Jensen - you are in your obdurate mood I see -

Blame China for sky rocketing costs, as all, yes all, construction will escalate to the sky as China absorbs half of the world suppy of material.

Far more than the USA has ever bought. Just the beginning - and with India and an emerging South America, cheap material as in steel, concrete, copper, zinc, tin -- and maybe oil? - all a thing of the past as in cheap.

Funny how Greg Nickels is given credit as in if he had propped up the mess the shit that was the last year of the Mono project, it would have surived. No way.

He just stepped back and said - go ahead and vote - and then all the time before supportive public --- said NO. NO MORE, those stupid fools.

All this Monorail replay is just the so silly and ego driven projection of wanna be opinion makers. The Stranger did so many M. Rail huff and pugg pieces, they were the joke of the city.

We all knew there was a lot of mutual banging going on.

Stranger should have questioned the finaces way back -- all schmooze and no substance.

I support rafting and small boats for transport if possible - but the Monorail was ill fated from the second round.

Little to do with Nickels. Blame a weak and stupid board, Joel Horn and Tom Weeks and Ann Levinson. Core playes who screwed us all.

I think that troll-ish clown is saying that THAT $1.5 billion doesn't matter because the Sound Transit politcos were hooked up to the Federal trough. The amount of the over-run isn't the point, the rationality of being above-grade isn't the point, the fact that the right-of-ways had been purchased isn't the point, the point is that in this mendacious corner of the world it doesn't matter if you've got a better idea. Nobody will listen to you unless you've got a few billion to toss around, either by because you are close to one of the lucky local tech-tycoons, or because you insinuated yourself into the federal pork chain through decades of chewing on rubbery chicken-or-fish luncheons and drowning your imagination in oceans of caffeinated breakfast brine in the cavern-of-commerce ballrooms of the region's commuter hotels. That seems to be the point.

Obviously, there seems to be some truth in it given what we've witnessed in this city since, I don't know, maybe since Victor Steinbreuck's (sp) tirades against the destruction of the Pike Place Market in the Seventies.

But the smirky, complacent nihilism of the post, (actually like so many of the posts from the legions of know-it-trolls infesting this worm bin), makes me wonder what's the hipster-hater's hope?

Seems like the adulthood proposed is its very ugliest version. Not the whole human with the chance to live in a world of liberation and reason, just the arbitrary and uncontestable power of fathers that know best.

And, what's a hipster anyway? An envious put-down fantasy generated by people who think others (the hipsters) are enjoying unearned, shallow and otherwise illegitmate pleasures and social power. It's as though pleasure and such power were necessarily scarce and that one damned class was wasting it all just screwing around.

Righteous stinking drabocrat! Your pseudonymous anonymity is a good start. Now make yourself completely silent and invisible and let the citizens describe and build out the city of their dreams.

Hipsters...this is why dialog in this town is so disfunctional. You say many things that have some truth, but in an unkind way. Still others are Sound Transit haters, or the most popular current sport, Nickels haters. In this world view everything is black and white.

Hipster states, "Bottom line is this: Sound Transit could weather it - and weather a lot more than SMP ever did" And that is true, for several good reasons. Josh is bitter about double standards, but the agencies are totally different. ST is regional with deep legal and governmental roots in county and city government. It has multiple lines of business which have operated for years. To the Seattleite they have built nothing. To the region they have moved millions on buses, built Tacoma Link, several park and rides and BRT ramps on freeways, and more.

The monorail and ST both got off to bad starts full of mistakes. Generally the first five years will be rough in any endeavor as you learn from your mistakes. The Stranger itself is certainly a better operation than in the early years.

The difference was that ST had deep roots in the region and chose to keep the quality high on what they did build and shrink their line. SMP from the start told us they had all of the answers and wanted to go it alone. They promised actual opening dates and displayed an amazing amount of chutzpah for folks who had never built anything, especially a monorail. Nickels had very little to do with its' failings, he just didn't have enough confidence in SMP's board or staff to stake his career on saving it.

So the agencies are really pointless to compare. The best thing about the monorail was the truly inspired passion of its supporters. Sometimes things don't work out, but I know that energy will resurface in many places.

As for Jensen Interceptor's question: Who is responsible for the $1.5 billion cost overrun on Sound Transit? This is a false choice, there is no one person. The agency was inexperienced and overly optomistic to start. The board (yes--including Greg) was overly trusting. Construction costs spiked at the same time the economy was tanking in the Bush recession. So they did drastic surgery, decided to build the easier part first, fired their director, and instituted new policies to make sure the board got good info and made cautious decisions.

Aside from the cost overrun proportion, the other difference between the light rail corridor and the Monorail is that light rail will serve more people in the metro area other than those on Seattle Island.

Oh, and did I mention it's a lot longer, too?

Well Time,

There's a lot of fair-mindedness in your report, but I don't think the history is quite right. You diminish the degree to which the City and County Councils and Executives shut the concept of rapid, elevated-grade transit out of the discussion from the get-go. The seperate-ness of the Monorail Board was a result of having been ostracized from the machinery of local governance. Elevated-grade transit is and was a better idea. Unfortunately, it wasn't the idea that was owned by the local political class then or now.

Obviously, the Monorail management was a disaster and Janice does a service by again naming the scoundrels who, in their arrogance, thought they should keep the financial strategizing within their cabal. Where are they now, Joel Horn and Tom Weeks? No doubt they are still making $180K/yr somewhere botching shit up.

No, it's not yet time to move on because the tendencies still linger in this town to slander perfectly reasonable propositions and make them seem insane. Simple, matter of fact propositions like 'elevated transit would run faster and have less of a construction impact than light-rail on the ground'; or, 'if you can get by without a waterfront highway for four years of construction maybe you can get rid of it forever'; or, 'a vibrant all-ages music scene is part of being a city with an exciting future'; or, 'one of our finest moments as a metropolis was simultaneously hosting the WTO ministerial and a five-day counter-convention of 50,000 union members and activists from all over the world'.'

In each of these cases the city's 'conventional wisdom' expressed through the major media and political authorities has been mostly irrational, shrill and idiotic.

There's no 'moving on' until the town's sense of its what is possible begins to open up and we start living and talking like the future really matters. Until then, it seems best to hold on to a keen sense of the recent history since the players remain the same, the truth is so rarely expressed, and the story is so easily re-written.

Okay, so Josh et al are still bitter about the Monorail. They miss the sleek vision, the off-gradeness of it, and dare I say the isn't-Seattle-special-esqueness of it. Let's go through the five stages of mourning right here and now:

• denial (see above),
• anger (blame the Mayor),
• bargaining (again see above),
• Depression (avoid walking accross Aurora Bridge),
• Acceptance (see below).

I know it's unfashonable, and requires cooperating with all those suburbaners to get done, but since Sound Transit is actually being built, why not focus our energies on making it bigger and better? Let's extend it to the UW and Northgate. Let's get it off-grade wherever possible. Let's run it to Bellevue. Hell, why not run it to poor Ballard, if it's so important to everyone? And if you still want to stick it to the Mayor, do West Seattle last.

Judging by the meandering, mildly stoned rhetorical exposition, I'd say that our Richard Jensen is none other than the Richard Jensen married to former Stranger editor Emily White, the Richard Jensen whose career has included stints as Seattle Metro bus driver and Sub Pop executive.

If so, I count one more point of evidence supporting my thesis that the people who use their real names on SLOG (and even brandish such use as a badge of honesty or integrity, blithely ignoring historical precedent of anonymity in the service of honesty and integrity) tend to be people who have public reputations that might lend weight to their words when published under those names.

Mildly!?

Maybe you guys can channel your angry energy about losing the monorail by doing monorail reenactments, just like the Civil War guys do! You can reserve a meeting room in one of our world-class libraries, dress as the various players, and re-eneact meetings, working from the minutes.

In fact, Savage, Josh and I tried that in the Spring in an attempt to cheer up Cogswell. It was fun at first but then just . . . .. weird.

Right, Josh could play multiple parts -- as his own self absorbed self, and as Walter Cronkhite!

“Seattle Monorail:
Voters Told: $1.75 billion (Ballard - WS)
Actual: $2.1 billion (Ballard - WS)
Overrun: 350 million”

Josh:

Your numbers are WAY low. There are some important lessons that this region and its political leaders need to learn from SMP. The Stranger should do what it can to report the truth about this debacle.

The cost projections for the monorail project were not stated in the 2002 ballot title, they were not in the Voters Guide, and they were not it the text of Petition One (the ordinance that was approved by the voters that November).

The project cost projections given to the voters were in a document called “ETC Seattle Popular Monorail Plan.” This August 5, 2002 document was in turn adopted by the board of SMP right after the voters approved the formation of SMP that November.

Here is what the project cost numbers were in that Plan (page 2): “. . . the ETC estimates that project costs to build the Green Line would be $1.29 billion (in year 2002 dollars) and that all project capital costs – including project costs plus financing costs, agency costs, project reserves, a construction escalator to account for construction over time, and a planning allowance – would total $1.749 billion (in year of expenditure dollars).”

THAT is what the voters were told.

The big problem with financing the project was that the tax revenues were too low, so that meant the debt payments would extend for decades longer than projected. When this secretive, deceptive group of appointees finally disclosed what they knew, the “actual” numbers looked like this: probably 50 additional years of taxing, and probably $11,000,000,000 in taxes would have to be collected.

That $1.75 billion figure you use was a projection that INCLUDED financing costs, so the overrun in y.o.e. dollars was more like $9 billion.

Now, lets take a quick look at what Sound Transit told voters. The voters were told that ST would need to collect less than $2 billion in local taxes to cover the capital costs of the entire ST system (that is from Sound Move, in Table 2).

I’ve got a question for all of the posters above who are praising the merits of Sound Transit. And I am a fan of light rail in general. How much in local taxes does ST now project it will need to collect to cover the (scaled back) Phase I system capital costs? It told voters less than $2 billion, and it is nearing completion of Phase I construction so it must know what the costs are going to be. So what is the amount over $2 billion that will need to be collected for Phase I (light and heavy rail, buses, etc.)?

The whole tragicomic monorail epsiode is just another chapter in the book of shortsighted planning decisions and political incompetence.

1957: Highway comission rejects Seattle Planning Comission plea to make room for rail in I-5 corridor. (Portland's new Green Line & Red Line run in such a "transitway" median)

1958: Proposal to create a true regional government fails.

1968: Forward Thrust's extensive rail/bus plan fails due to retarded 60% supermajority requirement.

1970: Nearly the same plan fails again due to Boeing bust. $900 million in federal dollars fly south to ATL instead.

The monorail was an attempt to overcome decades of paralysis, doomed to failure by competing for oxygen with the puny descendant of the grand plans unwisely turned aside long ago.

Numbers Matter:

Those numbers were mine, not Josh's, so I'm to blame. However, the general gist of my argument stands. From the Seattle Times, 7/6/05:

If taxes aren't increased, a more-conventional finance plan for the monorail would raise only about $1.67 billion for construction, according to a Seattle Times analysis. That's about $400 million short of the project's current price tag.

So, I was off by $50 million. If the establishment had stepped up with some down payment help, there would have been no need for the crazy financing plan. I guess a waterfront tunnel and a Mercer boulevard are more important for meeting our supposed Kyoto committment.

TIME Wrote:
"Who is responsible for the $1.5 billion cost overrun on Sound Transit? This is a false choice, there is no one person. The agency was inexperienced and overly optomistic to start. The board (yes--including Greg) was overly trusting."

I think most everyone will agree that this was profoundly expensive On-The-Job Training for us to pay for. Unfortunately, it would appear the lessons learned and costs endured to date on Sound Transit were ignored or lost with SMP and now with the tunnel/viaduct fiasco.

---Jensen

I think you're missing the big difference between the Monorail and ST plans.

Profits to developers: MORE with ST.

See? That's why.

And that's why they want an underwater tunnel to reward all the downtown property developers who will then block the "views" by building to the new higher building limits right up to the waterfront.

Josh’s $1.5 billion for Sound Transit is not apples to apples because:

• The original Sound Transit Plan was to 45th Street in the U District. The current plan goes to Husky Stadium. The Husky Stadium to 45th Street tunnel might not be cheap.

• The ST Board adjusted the debt policies to allow for more debt to get to Husky Stadium, which means the $1.5 billion will cost more in future debt.

Numbers Matter, Sound Transit’s most recent financial plan on the web (2005 draft) assumes $1.57 billion in debt will be issued through 2009 to cover Phase 1, in the form of 30-year bonds. About half that debt has been issued.

The financial plan only goes until 2030, and shows debt service continuing until then. If the debt is issued by 2009, Phase 1 would I assume be paid off by 2039—earlier if the bonds are issued earlier.

The document assumes a Phase 1 line that goes from Westlake to South 154th Street, which is shorter than the current Husky Stadium to Sea-Tac line.

The amount in taxes collected by 2030 is estimated at $14 billion sales tax, $3.2 billion MVET, with $4.3 billion total for the Seattle/Shoreline subarea.

Josh's $1.5 billion figure will be closer if the Husky Stadium to 45th section gets re-defined as Phase 2.

Is Mark Foley in a Scientology Rehab clinic?

Oh for christ sake..this shit again Josh? The monorail is dead so get the fuck over it. Move on!

BB wrote: “The amount in taxes collected by 2030 is estimated at $14 billion sales tax, $3.2 billion MVET . . ..” Those could indeed be the current estimates.

So we add those two up. ST is planning on collecting $17.2 billion in local taxes, despite the fact that voters only approved a plan calling for less than $2 billion in taxes to be collected.

That is a fraud on this community on par with what SMP did. SMP said “all project capital costs” would be $1.75 billion, and then two years after the voters approved that plan SMP said “Oh, yeah, by the way tax costs are expected to be over $11 billion.”

That is two examples of the leadership around here LYING to get voter approval for megaprojects. This is not a problem caused by China buying steel up.

Naturally the Supreme Court of Washington blesses this. The unions that get more dues because of these public megaprojects dictate what the court decides in cases where local government actions like this are challenged.

Ah, YES! It's all Clear Now!!! It's the damn unions fault!!!!

If you are so concerened about getting fleeced, you can always move. I hear Alabama is a lovely place.

Well Richard,

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. We could argue forever about why communication wasn't better between SMP and elected officials. But a good portion of the blame must go to the SMP. When pressed for details, they would invariably reply, "we are using DBOM so the risk is all on the contractor" End of discussion. They also did everything they could to poke at Sound Transit. The incredibly stupid and arrogant naming of an opening date, the overpromise of station design in public meetings, the pledge to deliver 14 miles or nothing--all of these these were targeted to say we are not Sound Transit. Well, that might, just might, have pissed off a few leaders who had worked hard on ST.

By the time the project went to bid, the financing wasn't the worst part of the monorail. Single tracks, huge columns, 90 foot stations that could only handle two cars, East German station design, less stations were all part of the plan.

Elevated transit is just like everything else in this world. Good and bad. Elevated does rise above traffic. It also sucks on the street level and blocks view corridors. The ability to carry people depends on the length of the stations. The length of the stations depends on the budget and political considerations.

At the end of the day, the SMP learned that it is far more complex to build a system than they envisioned. Time to take the best of that passion and devote it to expanding ST throughout the region.

The public employee unions use their big cash holdings to make sure a majority of the supreme court goes their way - some cases mean significantly more dues & clout for them. Look how they are buying and coercing the judges.

The unions dictate to the Supreme Court. I see. Do you hear helicopters?

Thanks for the mention of Yom Kippur. I believe all government meetings should be cancelled on this most holy of days. Everyone should have the opportunity to go spend the day in shul.

No, the actual monorail number was something from $4.6 to 11 billion. Bad research.