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Seattle Axes Monorail Project
Sokie writes "This afternoon the Seattle City Council passed a resolution advocating the terminiation of the Seattle Monorail Project. This follows a recent recommendation by the mayor that the project be scrapped. Lacking city support, the project looks to be dead and the city council will request that the state legislature formally terminate the project during their next session. City councilman Richard Conlin noted that the $1 million per week tax collection required by the SMP would be enough to eliminate fares on the city's bus network."
I see 4 out of the first 5 comments are Simpsons references, once again proving that nobody on Slashdot has a sense of humour to call their own.
Seattle didn't strike me as a place that needs a monorail, unless the outerlying 'burbs don't have a viable link with the other parts of the city?
New York would need one, if it weren't for the subway. I bet the council got the idea for a monorail from watching Batman Begins. They saw Gotham City had one, and wanted one too.
Sorry I don't have a Simpsons joke to share. So my work here is done.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
I live in Toronto Canada, but travel to the US alot on business and for pleasure.
As a Toronto resident I can get by without a car, just about anywhere in this city, even most of the outlying regions, can be reached quickly via rail (and sometimes a connecting bus), its not perfect, but most times my transit time is less than 30 minutes. When I visit New York City its even better, a GREAT public transit system.
Yet if I visit Jacksonville, Housten, Atlanta (hell just about anywhere in the south) I HAVE to rent a car, public transit is poor or non-existant. Yet they wonder why they have smog issues, and traffic congestion? Ever wonder what the south would be like if they had rail? They can't build subways (water table issue) but a monorail or just plain old above ground rail system would go a long way to improving their quality of life. Oil prices too high? Take the train, its cheaper.
It's my understanding that not every decision is reminiscent of a cloak and dagger-esque thriller between the good people of the City Council and the "evil" oil companies. And actually if you RTFA you'd note that it was just far too expensive to continue with the project. I would venture a guess that they learned this from a cost-benefit analysis rather than pressures and death threats from oil barons with large hats and shiny monocles.
Um, Seattle is pretty much carrying the rest of the state in terms of tax burden to services provided. In much of the US, it's the town that carries the rural, not the other way around.
Not that the monorail was a good idea.
I wouldn't subscribe to the idea that the oil companies sabotaged the Seattle monorail. That's tin-foil-hat land.
However, historically it was the Detroit auto industry which did sabotage many light-rail and metro systems throughout the US, in cities which were growing in the early 20th century, such as Atlanta and Los Angeles. How did they do it?
By donating buses whenever a municipality began planning rail, and thus encouraging those cities to pave more roads (and create a market for cars.)
Evil? Not per se. Blindly self-interested with bad long-term consequences, such as sprawl? I think so.
Sound Transit isn't chugging along just fine. It has already been cut in length, and gone over budget. It still hasn't addressed several places where they might have to tunnel, wich will drive the budget even higher. It also runs at street level in places, and that will further compete with existing traffic for space.
Is that really 'just fine'?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
No it's not. Its very uncommon for a city to be a profit to a state. Once a town gets so big (becoming a city) and starts needing things like freeways, on/off ramps, mass transit and so forth, it becomes a money pit to the state. Rural areas are dirt cheap to keep going. Thus why they pay more to the state then they ever get back.
Cities just aren't cost effective.
This is a big problem in california where there is so many huge cities (60 over 100,000 people) and not a much rural population.
Far as this, well a mono-rail screams money pit. But thats not to say mass transit is bad. If a mass transit system is done right it will be a boon to the area. Since construction of freeways and other roadways can be scaled back. Even when running in debt, a proper mass transit system is much cheaper then continually building more freeways, high way, and repairing them, expanding them.
Unfortunently most good forms of mass transit (trains, subways, trolleys, pedestrian/biker only pathways) get way under funded and under designed so they don't cover enough area to be worthwhile. I always love how city boards cut such projects back so hard, so then the rail system becomes a 3 mile stretch to no where, and then people attack mass transit for being a waste.
"Um, Seattle is pretty much carrying the rest of the state in terms of tax burden to services provided. In much of the US, it's the town that carries the rural, not the other way around."
This is a fiction that a lot of Seattlelites like to believe. If you actually look at the distribution of tax intake around Washington state, you'll find it's the suburbs that are bearing the brunt of the tax burden. While our state's businesses like to complain about needing tax relief, their tax load is quite light when compared to that of the state's individual taxpayers.
I for one am glad to see the monorail die. We don't need a bunch of half-*ssed transit systems - we need one overarching system that actually meets the Puget Sound region's needs (note: not just Seattle's).
#DeleteChrome
You're absolutely right. The problem with these kinds of projects is that it preys on the general cluelessness of the masses. This is the thought process I think most people go through:
-There is a traffic problem -Something must be done to fix the traffic problem -The monorail is indeed "something" and carries people -The monorail will therefore fix the traffic problem
Everyone so far has been talking about noise, cost, whatever. The main issue that I see is the one of CAPACITY. At the time the people voted for the monorail it was a "secret" as to how long the platforms will be. Doesn't sound like a huge deal at first glance, but look again. There is a limit to how often you can take a train through a station. It has to stop, the passengers get on/off, and then it has to start. I understand that you're optimistically looking at 2 minutes, but realistically looking at more like 3 minutes or so. The second variable is station length. The longer the station, the bigger the train, the more people can get on and off for each station visit. Therefore, on the most critical limiting factors in capacity is the station length. But it's a fucking secret when you have to vote on it? Consider that this is NOT Las Vegas or Disney world. You cannot make the station length the length of 3 city blocks - this is DOWNTOWN and so the stations have to be smaller.
Yes, they published capacity figures of X thousand people per day. As far as I recall, those figures were for the entire DAY and not realistic in terms of rush hour and getting to and from work. This isn't Disney World - we're talking rush hour here. What I want to know, and what I've NEVER been told is:
-How many people can this monorail between the hours of 7am and 9am to get INTO Seattle? -How many people currently, on the proposed monorail route, get into Seattle during that time window? -Is the difference between those numbers actually significant, or are we just spending a shit load of money on something that only 2% of commuters will use? Or is it 30%?
Someone give me the answers, please! And give me the answers 5 year ago before I have to vote on this issue.
Many thanks.
Rural areas have fewer transportation needs than cities which means the transportation costs are considerably lower. Fewer roads, fewer streetlights, fewer traffic lights, fewer collisions.
When you compare the total costs of a single town of 5,000 to another single town of 1,000,000, then and only then you are correct. However, if you break those costs out per person, then you are incorrect.
As for the fewer roads argument, that is just false. If you spread a million people into 200 towns of 5,000 people each with a distance of 30 miles between each town, then you are going to spend a fortune creating a network of roads to connect all these people together. You'll end up spending far more than if those million people lived close together such as in a large city.
Who needs a larger police force - the 600,000 people in Washington, DC or the 600,000 people in North Dakota? Who has a greater need for firemen and paramedics - 900,000 people in San Jose or 900,000 people in Montana?
It is far cheaper to provide services to a million people if those people live close together. If you break those people up into towns of 5,000 and spread them apart by 30 miles each, then it is far more expensive to provide those services. That's because you have to pay the initial fixed cost for 200 separate police departments, sheriff departments, fire departments, etc, etc. A large city pays those same fixed costs, but spreads the costs over their entire population. On top of that, large cities can then get by with 1-2 police officers or fire fighters per 5,000 residents. However, no town the size of 5,000 people could get by with only 1-2 fire fighters. Look up economies of scale.
That's why farms use wells and propane.
But then you need people to drill the wells and service the pumps. Those people and their equipment cost money. And you probably need at least one in each of those towns of 5,000. So, that's at least an additional 200 people and their equipment you have to pay.
As for the propane, you need a network to get the propane out to people. Large trucks can get the propane out to individuals. Well, those trucks come from a central location nearby. Assuming that they're not from the big city, then you have a hub out in the middle of nowhere. Which means, you have to spend the big money to build a pipeline out to the middle of nowhere. That all costs big money, which they're not going to get from the few people they service.
Prev: Virtually anything done in a city is cheaper per person than it is in rural areas.
You: Municipal services? What is the cost per person of salaries of city employees alone in New York City vs the the metric for residents of Wyoming?
You're comparing the most expensive cost of living (NYC) versus one of the least expensive cost of living (Wyoming). As such, your example is not correct given that their salaries are based on the cost of living versus percentage of income paid to municipal services. On an absolute basis, New Yorkers may pay more per person than someone in Wyoming for the same municipal services. But then, New Yorkers pay more for everything than people in Wyoming. But, if you look at the percentage of income paid to municipal services of New Yorkers versus residents of Wyoming, the people of Wyoming probably pay more.
If you want to bring up that kind of argument, then I should point out that those municipal workers in New York are also paying more in taxes than people in rural areas. That's simply a result of them getting paid a higher salary.
Removing the cost of living argument, then it is always cheaper to provide services to people clustered together rather than spread apart.
Prev: Urban taxes pay for the network of roads and highways that make suburbs possible.
You: Nope... ever see the tax rates of suburban houses spike to pay for the new influx?