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Friday, September 1, 2006
Seattle Monorail: Price of neglect
The City Council should approve Mayor Greg Nickels' request for $4.5 million to catch up on deferred maintenance of the Seattle Center Monorail.
Seattle needs to have a thorough conversation on the long-term viability of the 44-year-old system, but consideration of the mayor's budget is not the right venue for a decision on the monorail's fate.
The city postponed necessary upkeep and eschewed federal grant money to pay for it in anticipation of the Seattle Monorail Project replacing the existing system. The irony that the mayor and City Council took an active role in the demise of the SMP cannot be overlooked.
And City Council members and others are certainly justified in wondering why the mayor did not include the cost of monorail maintenance catch-up in his $1.6 billion transportation maintenance-spending proposal.
It would be irresponsible for city officials to in effect abandon a transit system simply because they failed to fund its proper maintenance. (This is the same city that already has seen the Waterfront Streetcar ripped up -- temporarily we trust -- to facilitate a sculpture park.) As a grade-separated people mover through the densest part of the city, the monorail is more than a tourist attraction.
We're due for that larger conversation about the monorail's future, including ideas about expanding it, say, to Qwest Field and Safeco Field. For now, a competent upgrade of the monorail is the first and necessary step.
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