Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 3, March 2004

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GUEST COMMENTARY:

Haste to construct monorail

can lead to poor decisions

By RICHARD CONLIN

The monorail is being planned and constructed by the Seattle Monorail Project, which is an independent governing agency, not under the authority of the City of Seattle. The SMP Board also makes the decisions about station locations and route. However, the City Council has areas of both authority and responsibility over the construction of the monorail.

As steward of the public trust in City right-of-way, the City has an opportunity and obligation to ensure that the plan is workable and effective before granting the SMP authority to use the right-of-way. The City also owns the Seattle Center and other property, such as the parkland around Longfellow Creek and near the proposed Avalon station, and has the sole discretion to determine whether to allow that land to be used for monorail purposes.

Core interests of the City are to ensure that the monorail is well-integrated with other transportation modes to allow people to access the monorail and make connections; to ensure that the route and stations appropriately match the land use and character of the communities they impact; and to ensure that there is appropriate mitigation for adverse impacts that the monorail might cause.

Ideally, the SMP would effectively manage most of these issues, and would work in close consultation with the City to address any conflicts.

Unfortunately, there are several examples of situations where the SMP's emphasis on moving rapidly has led to problematic decisions.

As the saying goes, the more haste, the less speed. The outstanding example is the failure to accurately forecast revenues, a mistake that has resulted in significant delays and increased costs.

Other examples include:

· Proposing a site for the Westlake Station close to Virginia Street that would require an expensive and shadowing pedestrian walkway to connect to the Westlake Center;

· Proposing a location for the Mercer and Elliott station that is at the bottom of a bluff, with an 84-step stairway as the only pedestrian connection, projecting ridership on the basis of the population at the top of the bluff, and incorporating no improvements to the pedestrian connection;

· Proposing a route in West Seattle that passes over a salmon stream, requiring extensive and expensive environmental mitigation;

· Rejecting the direct route to the West Seattle Junction, up Fauntleroy Way, apparently as a result of lobbying by property owners, in favor of a route that requires two right angle turns and may have a station that displaces park land.

There are many such examples, and many e-mails and letters critical of the choices being made are coming to the Council. It is surprising how many writers identify themselves as monorail supporters who are disappointed, alarmed, or, in frustration, becoming opponents as a result of this poor decision-making. The City's Monorail Review Panel, a team of Planning and Design Commission members who are

reviewing the SMP proposals, has also voiced many of these concerns.

Recently a representative of one of the teams that will be bidding on the construction contract informed my office that the insistence of the SMP on opening something in 2007, rather than letting the contractor set the schedule and build the whole line as efficiently as possible for the 2009 completion date, could cost many millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses.

While there may be people who would foster delay in order to scuttle the project, that is not my approach.

If I decide that the monorail won't work, I will say so. Raising concerns and asking that they be addressed is not obstructionist. It is only by addressing legitimate concerns that the project can establish its ability to move forward.

The SMP's major mistake was failing to take the time to properly project revenues, which has required cutting back on the project and straining every effort to find a way to recover.

The SMP must avoid making more mistakes and further compromising the viability of the project as a transportation system by evading crucial decisions and cutting more corners.

2004 will be a crucial year, as the SMP moves into the process of identifying a contractor and seeks approval for its planned route and stations from the City. It is imperative that the SMP take the time to do it right, rather than papering over problems by claiming the need for haste. If this project is now so fragile that taking the time to make good decisions endangers its ability to go forward, then the project is doomed to failure.

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Richard Conlin is a member of the Seattle City Council.