Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 5, May 2004
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Tensions rise in monorail debate
By JAMES BUSH
Was it the first stirrings of a David-vs.-Goliath battle to come or simply the last gasp for monorail opponents before the City Council signs off on the $1.6 billion public transit project?
Either way, it was a hot time in old Crown Hill for the previously popular Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) as residents of the neighborhood surrounding the terminus of the 14-mile Green Line teed off on the project at a pair of community meetings at Loyal Heights Community Center.
The April 12 and April 19 meetings were organized by members of the 17th Avenue Northwest Block Watch, who have a long list of concerns they want to see addressed before the monorail breaks ground this fall. They've turned their three-block segment of 17th NW into an sea of red monorail recall campaign signs and gotten the attention of SMP officials and monorail critics alike. Four City Council members also made the trek to Crown Hill to listen to neighborhood residents' concerns.
What's behind this sudden turn in the debate? While the monorail has managed a sunny public image thus far, "the devil is in the details," said Marianne Scholl, president of the 15th Avenue Northwest Association, a joint residential/business organization representing the corridor the monorail will take to its northernmost station at NW 85th Street.
The neighbors are clearly bedeviled by changes in the monorail proposal since its narrow win at the polls in 2002. The assumption by many that the trains would travel down the middle of the street, like the historic Seattle Center monorail, have proven incorrect: in its preferred alignment, the 15th Avenue NW section of the monorail will displace 13 businesses (with 96 employees) and six households, according to the final environmental impact statement (EIS).
Neighbors are angry that faulty revenue projections could mean the motor vehicle tax that funds the project will be collected for an extra decade. They question whether the single-rail alignment the monorail will assume north of Market Street can work efficiently with the rest of the double-rail system. And they wonder why there is no parking facility at the terminus; a situation they fear will fill residential streets with parked vehicles belonging to monorail riders.
"Either give us what we voted for, and if you're not going to, don't do it at all," said neighborhood resident Kendra Redman.
Seattle Monorail Project officials say that the changes were made for legitimate reasons and the final proposal is sound. While giving a tour of the proposed Green Line, SMP Deputy Director Anne Levinson said many of the changes in the system were made in response to the more than 10,000 public comments received during the monorail public process.
Levinson, who worked for two different Seattle mayors during a long career in public service, says she was attracted to SMP for two reasons: Seattle needs a dependable public transportation system and the team that has been assembled can deliver it. "We've been going and we intend to keep going at an intense pace," she noted.
As the monorail travels mainly on city streets, two permissions are required from the City Council before construction can start. The first, approval of the monorail alignment, is well underway, with a vote expected as early as May 3. The second, the formal contract between SMP and the city (known as the Transitway Agreement), hasn't yet been submitted for Council approval.
"Let's get the final design before the Transitway agreement is granted," said Henry Aronson, a speaker at both meetings. "Once it's signed, the control is lost." Aronson, who led the opposition to the monorail ballot issue, is now the spokesman for OnTrack, a group of business community monorail watchdogs.
Tim Wulf, co-chair of Monorailrecall.com, which seeks to force a revote on the plan, captured the tone of the meetings well when he completed his presentation at the second meeting with a gibe at the several SMP staffers in attendance. "So brush up your resumes," said Wulf, "because we're taking our city back."
Not so fast. The monorail concept may have been proposed by a taxi cab driver and pushed by grass-roots activists, but the professionals had taken over by the time the state Legislature passed enabling legislation for the system. They set a high bar for those seeking to force a revote: a requirement that they gather signatures from some 64,206 Seattle residents in just 90 days. (In comparison, a normal city initiative can qualify for the ballot through 17,228 signatures gathered in 180 days.) Monorailrecall.com organizers say they can use the lower signature standard by simply crafting an initiative which would negate the City Council alignment and transitway approvals.
Crown Hill monorail critics say they're not simply sore losers: Both Redman and Paul Frederick say they voted for the plan. Frederick even moved from Phinney Ridge to Crown Hill knowing of the line's close proximity to his new home. "I didn't know I was going to move into a situation that wasn't well planned," he says.
The bare-bones approach of the monorail project means that there is little mitigation money to sooth neighborhood concerns. For example, while SMP Director Joel Horn stated at the April 19 meeting that the 15th Avenue Northwest Association opposed a possible parking garage at the NW 85th Street station, Scholl's recollection is slightly different. "We didn't see any sign in the budget anywhere of free parking, so we took a realist approach," she said.
The monorail EIS acknowledges the "hide and ride" problem caused by commuters who avoid paying for expensive downtown parking by leaving their car on neighborhood streets and taking public transit to their final destination. Neighbors fear the problem will also extend to weekend events at the sports stadiums and Seattle Center. The final EIS estimates about 300 riders would board at NW 85th Street for baseball and football games.
SMP suggests neighbors form a residential parking zone, which imposes strict time restrictions on everyone but area residents.
The meetings didn't just draw monorail critics. Mark Early, a volunteer for the monorail campaigns, defended the SMP's performance at the first meeting. In an interview, he said criticism of the monorail proposal is healthy because it can lead to a better system. He likens the vision of the monorail to that of the founders of the 1962 World's Fair, which created Seattle Center. "I'm grateful to my parents' generation for having stepped up and done that," he said. "The monorail is my generation's trying to do the same: to leave something for Seattle."
Don Ware, who owns three properties on 15th Avenue NW, thinks the speedy, stream-lined monorail trains can draw riders who don't like buses, including young people. "The monorail is different," he said, "because the monorail is cool."