“We Can No Longer Deliver the Entire Sound Transit 2 Program.”

Dear Sound Transit board,
The way to deal with a revenue shortfall is not to shortchange your light rail projects. To the extent feasible within the constraints of subarea equity, it is to delay and phase in the delivery of those projects.

Otherwise, the spine of our mass transit system is going to be like a person who goes through their entire adult life lacking a number of IQ points because they were malnourished as a child.

It’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe RR, not “San Francisco”.

My usual email from Real Change this week was just McGinn talking points. I’ve never seen Tim willing to do that for an elected before.

Thanks. Fixed.

so, a revenue shortfall is a manageable problem. you just delay and defer project delivery. and equitably it makes some kind of sense, because you are having delayed or deferred delivery of tax dollars to the agency building the thing. that’s why revenue shortfalls for city, county, state and ST are tough, but manageable, problems.

It’s only not manageable when it’s the monorail project. in that case, a revenue shortfall is ground to kill the project. Deferred delivery of the project, proposing tax increases, in that case, are not viable ways of resolving the issue; you have to execute the whole project; otherwise voters and taxpayers might be subject to the horror of a delayed delivery of the project, or the horror of some kind of tax increase down the road to shore up finances. Tax increases and project deferral are only okay if it’s any other agency of government.

so, a revenue shortfall is a manageable problem. you just delay and defer project delivery. and equitably it makes some kind of sense, because you are having delayed or deferred delivery of tax dollars to the agency building the thing. that’s why revenue shortfalls for city, county, state and ST are tough, but manageable, problems.

It’s only not manageable when it’s the monorail project. in that case, a revenue shortfall is ground to kill the project. Deferred delivery of the project, proposing tax increases, in that case, are not viable ways of resolving the issue; you have to execute the whole project; otherwise voters and taxpayers might be subject to the horror of a delayed delivery of the project, or the horror of some kind of tax increase down the road to shore up finances. Tax increases and project deferral are only okay if it’s any other agency of government.

And the Edmonds station is for Sounder (the commuter/heavy rail train), not Link light rail.

And the Edmonds station is for Sounder (the commuter/heavy rail train), not Link light rail.

And the Edmonds station is for Sounder (the commuter/heavy rail train), not Link light rail.

And the Edmonds station is for Sounder (the commuter/heavy rail train), not Link light rail.

And the Edmonds station is for Sounder (the commuter/heavy rail train), not Link light rail.

I want my vote back.

Sorry, wygd, not a valid comparison. The monorail project was SO far behind in the funding game, they were ready to sell Junk Bonds at exhorbitant interest rates, just to hang on by their fingernails. And this during a surging economy!

It still amazes me the bitterness that lingers for many monorail supporters. Quite a few of them seem to oppose Sound Transit’s LINK just to spite what they perceive as the entity that killed the monorail.

One factual matter that sticks in my craw is the argument made by monorail supporters that the monorail is superior to light rail because it is grade separated. But light rail can be grade separated, and in fact LINK is grade separated like monorail for parts, and all of the expansion of LINK over then next decade will be grade separated (underground). It seems that if anything, rail technology gives you more flexibility to run it on stilts, underground, or at grade.

Maybe some expert can help me out here: Is there any reason an elevated light rail track would cost more than an elevated monorail monotrack? I don’t understand the monorail enthusiasts argument here. It seems that the land acquisition, the construction of the pillars, etc. would cost roughly the same if it is supporting the same capacity of transit, whether it is a monorail or light rail setup.

Buy the land now for where ever it’s going to go, build later. Spend the money on the long lead time items (buying and permitting). That way when the economy gets going again the can get moving quickly.

The good news is that the most crucial part (in terms of capacity) is still intact. The Capitol Hill, UW, Brooklyn, Roosevelt and Northgate segments should be essentially unaffected, assuming that the tunneling goes okay.

Tunneling going okay is a big assumption.

True.

True.

True.

Raise ticket prices.
What is the market rate for commuting by car?
(I knew I could use that bs line from the parking tax increase)

ST has never delivered anything on time counting by the timelines they provided voters when we were voting.

Isn’t that basically what they’re proposing to do?

Maybe that’s because you’ve never seen an elected pay much attention to Real Change? (Except for Nick Licata.)

Except for the at-grade portion through Rainier Valley, I like Link just fine — and ride it whenever I can.It IS a valid comparison, because the Monorail Project’s “$11 billion plan” was simply the worst-case scenario projection — NOT what was expected for the financing.And, yes, elevated light rail costs much more to build than monorail because it requires a much wider guideway and possibly condemnation of more property.But my bitterness is reserved for folks like Richard Conlin who attacked the monorail for not being prepared for every contingency in its planning, but then happily speaks about the deep bore tunnel in public as if there is no need to consider significant cost overruns.

Why does it require wider and bulkier supports? Is it because monorail has a lot less passenger capacity?

“Except for the at-grade portion through Rainier Valley, I like Link just fine — and ride it whenever I can.”

What’s your prob with that stretch?

It’s all the fault of evil, greedy bus drivers getting raises over the last 10 years. Just ask the Washington Policy Center.

Michael’s correct to an extent, below, in that monorail systems have a lower profile than light rail systems, so the per-mile costs of elevated trackway would be somewhat lower. I say somewhat because the volume of concrete and steel (rebar) in the columns and guideways are actually just a small portion of the costs of construction. Contractor costs, system costs, etc. would be roughly similar to elevated light rail.

The Seattle monorail project cut costs further by proposing short trains. Their platforms were going to be about 1/4th the size of Link light rail platforms. Short stations and short trains to match also reduce costs, but at the obvious expense of limiting capacity and expansion capability.

That’s kind of what I figured. It seems that if you’re going to go all out and build expensive, grade separated transit, you might as well make it high capacity, at least for the North Link segment, which hits the most densely populated areas in the region.

That’s “Edmonds Commuter Rail Station,” not light rail station.

Many of us westsiders (Ballard to West Seattle) are still angry because of the way the monorail project was mismanaged into fiscal infeasibility. (Remember Joel Horn? He also mismanaged the Commons into oblivion.) Conlin helped bury the Monorail in a dishonorable manner. Many of the many have not and will not forget his betrayal of our neighborhoods. We can’t even get a stinkin’ Sounder station in Ballard to serve the NW sector with real grade separated transit. We get BRT on 15th, and crappy and deteriorating regular bus service everywhere else.

Just posting to let you know I agree with your calling out Conlin for his role in killing the monorail.