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Scrap light rail plan for monorail, Seattle City Council candidate says

Friday, October 1, 1999

By KERY MURAKAMI Mail Author
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

Needing to make up ground fast before next month's elections, Seattle City Council candidate Curt Firestone last night proposed scrapping the region's light rail system and instead building a monorail.

In making the dramatic proposal a month before the Nov. 2 general election, Firestone may be trying to tap growing uneasiness with the $2billion light rail line.

"I have come to the conclusion that light rail is a mistake, and we have to begin standing up and saying so," Firestone said last night as he announced the proposal at a council candidates' forum on Beacon Hill.

He said a monorail would be cheaper and would not disrupt neighborhoods as much as the rail line.

That the announcement came on Beacon Hill was apropos because its neighboring community, the Rainier Valley, has been at the epicenter of the rail line's controversy.

The community group Save Our Valley worries that people might be run over by the trains, and businesses would have to be torn down to make room for the tracks.

None of that would happen with a monorail, said George Curtis, head of Save Our Valley.

He and some Save Our Valley activists cheered when Firestone said at the debate, "We need to go back to the voters and substitute monorail for light rail."

But as word spread yesterday that Firestone was going to take the stance against light rail, Sound Transit officials and even some who have worked on a proposed monorail project questioned whether Firestone's idea is realistic, and others said running a monorail through neighborhoods would stir even more controversy than running trains through the valley.

Margaret Pageler, the incumbent councilwoman and Firestone's opponent, noted the Sound Move plan adopted by voters called for trains, not a monorail.

"That's not what the voters wanted," she said.

Firestone said the monorail would take care of some of the problems that have spurred protests from property owners and those who live along the proposed light rail line's route.

He said his plan would:

  • Follow a 40-mile route, including service through Ballard, Fremont, Northgate and West Seattle -- essentially the plan approved by Seattle voters as part of Proposition 41 two years ago.

  • Cost about $1 billion, or about half as much as light rail.

  • Have higher ridership than light rail because more people would use it.

  • Spare the University District from traffic congestion that may come with being light rail's northern terminus.

  • Avoid displacing buses from the Downtown transit tunnel, as light rail would.

  • Ease concerns of Rainier Valley residents who don't want a street-level train on Martin Luther King Jr. Way South.

    But the proposal also raises so many questions that some wondered if it were the desperate act of a candidate who finished a distant second in the Sept. 14 primary election.

    "If you think the trains going down the street caused a flap, wait until you see the reaction to having the monorail go by neighborhoods 30 feet off the ground," said King County Councilman Greg Nickels, D-Seattle, who is also vice chairman of Sound Transit's board.

    "He might lose more votes than he gains," said City Councilman Richard McIver, another transit board member.

    Some also questioned whether the monorail could be built at the cost Firestone quotes.

    Firestone said he developed the $1 billion figure by consulting an engineering firm's Web site. The firm estimates a monorail could be built for $25 million per mile.

    The Elevated Transportation Company, which has been working to implement the voters' vision of a monorail, sets a much higher price.

    Kristina Hill, a University of Washington urban planning expert and Elevated Transportation Company board member, said estimates vary: She believes a monorail would cost at least $35 million-a-mile, while most estimates put it closer to $45million.

    At the high end, that would come to $1.8 billion, $200 million less than light rail.

    But Hill also noted that no one has studied monorail construction costs in an area with as many hills as the Puget Sound area, "and the price usually goes up when you find out all that's involved."

    Nickels and McIver said Sound Transit probably wouldn't call for another vote on the light rail-monorail question, which would be required if the agency switches plans. Both said commuters, who approved a tax increase to support Sound Transit's rail-and-bus transit plan in 1996, probably would not want to start from scratch designing a monorail system.

    But Firestone, who envisions a vote in February, said he believes neighborhoods are so worried about light rail, they'll want to hit the brakes.

    "It takes a lot of guts to say we've made a mistake," Firestone said. "Whether Sound Transit has the guts to say they've made a mistake, I can't answer that."

    P-I reporter Kery Murakami can be reached at 206-448-8030 or kerymurakami@seattle-pi.com

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