City Council OKs route for monorail

The 14-mile route from West Seattle to Crown Hill for Seattle's new monorail system was approved yesterday by the City Council, a key decision that allows the controversial project to move forward but not the last obstacle in its path.

The 8-1 vote means two teams of companies vying to be the one that will design, build and run the system can begin putting their bids together to submit to the Seattle Monorail Project by Aug. 16.

"It's a very big step," said Anne Levinson, the monorail project's deputy director.

Now comes the next one.

Council members promise an independent analysis of the monorail's financial profile, namely its ability to raise enough cash to finance the building and operating of the system in its initial years. Finances have been a sensitive subject for the $1.75 billion project, which officials have scaled back after initial tax revenue came in about a third less than expectations.

While the monorail can begin designing its system it can't begin building it until the financial analysis is done. The agreement allowing the project to be built in city streets will likely require the financial assessment.

"The decisions we're facing (now) are just as hard if not harder than the alignment," said Councilman Nick Licata, who helped push the corridor proposal through the body. "It's not over yet."

Yesterday's move was the last of several the council made on the alignment. Most of the alignment was unchanged from what was originally conceived and later approved by monorail officials. If built, the monorail will run from Crown Hill to West Seattle via Queen Anne, Belltown, downtown, Sodo and the West Seattle Bridge, crossing the Duwamish on the West Seattle Bridge and the Lake Washington Ship Canal on a new span, 125 feet above the water.

In early May, after a long debate and much lobbying in both directions, the council approved the segment that will cross the middle of the Seattle Center and exit through the Experience Music Project.

A week ago, it approved several other changes in the route, setting minimum distances for the trains from buildings on Second Avenue downtown and West Harrison Street near the center on Queen Anne Hill. It also told monorail officials to consider designing a shorter station on Elliott Avenue at West Mercer Street to reduce the view obstruction to West Queen Anne residents.

At that time they also set minimum clearances for the trains on California Avenue in West Seattle. Yesterday they returned to a remaining West Seattle issue, deciding in a split vote not to require the monorail to be placed on the center of California to clear buildings between Southwest Dawson and Edmunds streets.

Residents on part of the line had asked for the center alignment facing those two blocks, because the approved alignment would place trains within 7 feet of some building windows.

Councilman Tom Rasmussen had pushed to get the trains moved to the center of the street for the two blocks, saying the original alignment on the west side would more severely affect people along that edge.

"It's a train. It's big. You hear it," he said.

But the council voted 5-4 to keep to the original plan after monorail officials said moving to the center would cut off left turns from several driveways, forcing some drivers to have to drive around the block to get to California Avenue. Monorail Construction Director Tom Horkan also said the center alignment could add $950,000 in expense if a sewer needed to be moved and a second guide beam added.

Transportation Committee Chairman Richard Conlin cast the lone dissenting vote on the alignment. Conlin said he remains concerned the monorail will blight some neighborhoods, that the cross-Seattle Center route was wrong, and that he's unconvinced the project is economically viable.

"There are many people in Seattle who share my concerns," he said.

But most council members said the alignment changes had improved the system that voters approved two years ago, and that it was time to move the monorail proposal ahead at least to the financial review stage.

"I don't want to be a part of another generation that has failed to provide an integrated transportation system" for the city, said Council President Jan Drago. Monorail critics said they'll continue watching progress, however, to make sure the project turns out the way voters were led to believe.

"The doomsday scenario is that they sell the first series of bonds ... they build from Sodo to Interbay, the project runs out of money, there are cost overruns coupled with a shortfall in revenue, additional bonds cannot be sold, they have no more funding capacity and all we're left with is a project that ... future generations will have to tax themselves to tear down," said Henry Aronson, a member of the On Track group that is watchdogging the project.

The street-use agreement that includes the financial review also requires approval from the council, which held a public hearing on the document last night. The document was negotiated between monorail officials and Nickels administration staffers, all of whom are officially supporting its approval by the council.

But at least one monorail board member, Kristina Hill, has said the agreement is not fair to the monorail because it requires many things of the agency that weren't required of Sound Transit when it began its light rail project.

Hill said the agreement, as written, would require approvals of the monorail's construction sequence that weren't demanded of Sound Transit, including approval of an advisory committee before master-use permits can be issued for stations and bridges. It requires the monorail to pay for needed relocations of connections to city-owned utilities and demands longer notice periods for repair work.

Unlike the Sound Transit agreement, according to a monorail staff analysis, the monorail must provide for removal of its system if it is abandoned before construction is complete. Unlike Sound Transit, the monorail also would be required to spend millions on street improvements around the monorail system and for nearby projects.

"They're charging too much to the people who pay for the monorail," said Hill, who said the two agreements should have comparable requirements. She said she expects the issue to be discussed by the monorail's board today. "It ought to be a comparable standard," she said.

At a hearing last night, several speakers supported the financial study and asked for a strong agreement, one that would make sure the monorail maintains access to their property, replaces lost parking and considers residents' privacy.

"I don't know how you fully mitigate for loss of a way of life," said West Seattle resident Joan Jeffreys.

MONORAIL INVESTIGATION

An independent investigation of the Memorial Day fire aboard the Seattle Center Monorail will be conducted, Center officials said yesterday. Two engineering firms, SNC-Lavalin of Vancouver, B.C., and Hughes Associates Inc. of Baltimore will evaluate exactly what caused the blaze. Fire officials initially said a short-circuit was to blame, but were unsure what caused the short-circuit. There were no injuries, but service along the line has been suspended and officials say they don't know when the Monorail between Westlake Center and the Seattle Center will operate again.

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