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Seattle Axes Monorail Project

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the more-of-a-shelbyville-kind-of-idea dept.

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."

3 of 524 comments (clear)

  1. Most ill-conceived project, ever by Tomy · · Score: 5, Interesting
    As one of the (angry) tax payers funding this project, I'd really like to see some heads roll over this one. We're not getting any of our money back (I pay almost $400 a year for this), and we will continue to have to pay for an additional two years until they sell off the 36 properties they aquired through iminent domain (which should go back to the original owners if the project is scrapped).

    The project is complete lunacy since the stations have no provision for parking/park and ride, and the route follows an existing bus line and would not be any faster than that bus line. And it would cost more per ride.

    I could support it if they actually tried something innovative, like the Skyweb Express, but as the project stands, it's just a solution looking for a problem.

    I am part of the small minority of Seattlites whose home and work are in walking distance of the originally proposed line, and I can't see any reason to choose it, since it would cost me more to ride it than driving to work and paying for parking.

  2. Why Seattle Needed the Monorail by elister · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Like some cities on the West Coast, Seattle has hills and light rail doesnt work very well with hills. Light rail construction (which is not elevated) has been ongoing for years now, but most of the costs associated with it have to do with tunneling. Its a soft soil, so when you hit bodies of water, you have have to dig even deeper, which costs more money and takes longer to tunnel.

    With Monorail, all you need to do is clear a path. Buy out business along the green line, no tunneling is involed. Plus im told that monorail can be converted to handle a maglev type of transportation. It was originally supposed to cost under 2 billion, but people didnt like the tax and decided to register their cars outside of KingCounty. This caused a severe drop in revene and prompted the monorail execs to resort to drastic funding (junk bonds, high intrest loans, etc) to the point where its going to cost over 10 billion.

    We need the monorail (or some form of elevated transportation) because there isnt enough room to build more highways. The sucess of the monorail would have helped to extend it to other areas of King County such as Redmond or Tacoma. I used to temp at Microsoft, and getting to Redmond from Seattle wasnt really a problem, but getting home sure was a nightmare. Any minor problem, and your going to see backups.

    King County citizens voted in favor for the monorail 5 times! And yet, its never gonna be built. Its beyond surreal.

  3. Re:Monorail... by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Normally I don't respond to AC, but this is the most wrong thing I've read on Slashdot in ages.
    Since FDR's administration, the US Government has pursued a policy of low food costs, which has been sustained through ag subsidies that remove smaller producers by encouraging consolidation and scale.
    Can you please explain to the audience how subsidies lower food prices? The opposite is true: subsidies prop up inefficient farming and raise prices for consumers. Domestic sugar subsidies have bilked the common American out of billions over the years in the biggest wealth transfer scheme of all time. The same is true to a lesser degree for many domestic crops which are protected from foreign competition by federal subsidy.

    You might say that subsidies ensure a stable domestic food supply, which is a strategic necessity. I wouldn't argue against that, but I can hardly see how you expect us to believe that farm subsidies help the consumer at the expense of the farmer. Clearly the opposite is true.