To state, monorail seen as trouble for transit plans

Saturday, September 24, 2005

By CHRIS McGANN
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

OLYMPIA -- The Seattle City Council's move to put the kibosh on the troubled monorail will help avert voter attention from a glaring example of project mismanagement and back to the need for critical investments in the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the Evergreen Point Bridge, top state transportation planners said yesterday.

Concern has been growing that taxpayers would cite wasted dollars for the failing Seattle project as evidence of widespread waste of transportation taxes.

"The biggest concern we had with the monorail is that it reinforced doubts about whether you can make good solid plans and offer solid promises to people," said Transportation Department Secretary Doug MacDonald.

"That's a huge problem for everybody in transportation, and the monorail experience makes that more difficult," he said.

"What we have to do is show people that the kind of work we are doing on the viaduct or the 520 bridge is much more cautious in setting public expectation so that we have a better chance of delivering on our promises," MacDonald said.

The perception problem is amplified by strong early support for Initiative 912 on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The initiative would repeal the 9.5 cent-per-gallon gas tax increase, gutting the $8.5 billion roads bill lawmakers passed earlier this year.

Gov. Christine Gregoire had long held concerns that the monorail was "not the right approach," said her spokeswoman, Carol Andrews.

"This provides an opportunity to shift the focus back where it belongs, on safety issues, particularly to the viaduct and SR 520."

Andrews said the council's move yesterday helped that effort.

"Everybody is sort of realizing that that's where the focus needs to be immediately," she said.

"All we have to do is look to New Orleans to see that terrible things can happen if you are not prepared."

State House Transportation Committee Chairman Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said the monorail board, not the city, is to blame for killing Seattle's dream of a new monorail.

"They put together a financially unsound proposal," Murray said.

Consequently, he said: "The failure of the city to put together either a financially sound proposal or to have killed the project would have resulted in the Legislature killing the monorail."

Murray said such action, though necessary, would have set a terrible precedent, but he would have done it.

"If this thing had ended up in the Legislature, Seattle and the Seattle elected officials would have looked like a bunch of Bozos."

P-I reporter Chris McGann can be reached at 360-943-3990 or chrismcgann@seattlepi.com.

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