The Seattle Times calls it “breaking news” but it really doesn’t come as much of a surprise:
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels is withdrawing his support for the monorail, and at a press conference is calling on the city to withhold construction permits.
Nickels is asking City Council President Jan Drago to hold an emergency session next Thursday to withhold the permits.
Nickels also called for a Nov. 8 ballot measure to advise city leaders on what to do next with the financially-troubled project.
The level-headed pragmatist in me voted against the Monorail, but I always kinda sorta really wanted to see it built. Ah well.
“Pulls Plug”? I hardly think so.
“Nickels also called for a Nov. 8 ballot measure to advise city leaders on what to do next with the financially-troubled project.”
Me thinks gelded Mayor talks out of both sides of mouth.
me thinks this is a dead issue that never should have been put into play.
We have wasted millions on this Fiasco.
I guess so much for honoring the ‘will of the people’. How many times do we need to vote for this thing?
This is such bullshit. First, the elected officials stated publicly that they would not enforce the collection of the monorail excise tax — that drivers who re-registered cars outside the county would not be pursued. Then, the monorail got ‘junk’ financing, as a result of not having the revenue they otherwise would have. Then, the very same officials reacted with feigned surprise and announced that the monorail board had better ‘get its act together’ or they would further pull support. Now they have further pulled support.
No doubt whatever the city puts on the Nov. 8 ballot is going to be another screw job described as a helping hand.
Whether you supported the monorail or not, you have to look at what’s been done to this initiative as more elitism from the powers-that-be.
He won’t pull the plug immediately. There’s an interim manager that’s getting $38,000 taxpayer dollars a month and needs to hang around for a while.
Re: 3.
We didn’t vote for “this thing”. We voted on a specific plan, with a defined route length and financing plan. It clearly can’t be built as voted upon. They are obligated to put this up for a revote if they want to build something other than what was authorized.
Is this really so hard to understand?
Which time? We’ve voted for a monorail 5 times. How hard is it to understand that the people of Seattle have voted for a monorail. Those who keep getting it killed are the same people who were against it each time it came up. Those who altered the plan are those on the Against committee.
The fact is those who keep screaming that the monorail shouldn’t happen are the same idiots who are complaining that the gas tax violates ‘the will of the people’.
This is good news for the city, the region and the state. The Monorail was underfunded because the Board underestimated the tax base – and it never faced the reality of that fatal error. In the city’s review of the transit way agreement staff found that the Monorail costs would need to rise, not fall – because the line as proposed would do more harm than good to other things, without costly improvements.
Praise should go to the real work of the hard nosed bureaucrats who watched out for the public interest and paid attention to real bottom line – ignoring the pithy powerpoint PR presentations from the Monorail Board’s “independent” hired guns. Details matter.
The Monorail Board could do us all a favor by closing up shop tomorrow. It was easy to want the Monorail in terms of the heart – but it has never made sense to from the head.
The mayor is now challenged to offer a plan for a real vision for public rail in the city that connects to the trains we’re already building – and will offer more seamless public transportation within the city, that connects to the airport and the wider region.
This is a start. Not a finish.
The people have never voted on a monorail with the revenue shortfall and 50+ year bond payments that is currently the cold, hard reality.
Count me among the “idiots” screaming for the monorail to end. If I’m an idiot for seeing this financial train wreck coming, I’m glad to wear the moniker.
This thing never penciled out. It won’t get the ridership, collect the taxes, or ultimately pay its operating costs as was claimed by supporters. Who are the real idiots? It was a pipe dream for those who can’t do math, or who were in denial about the history of each and every similar project nationwide.
If you are an idiot, the reason would be that you bought the pablum that the monorail is a financial train wreck. The financial train wreck is the fact that drivers were allowed to register vehicles out-of-county and cheat the tax.
The monorail can’t be paid for because the County government refused to enforce the taxes which we voted in to pay for it.
The people voted for a monorail. The rest was added later. Did you need that reduced to a thirty second sound byte to understand it?
How’s Joel “the commons” Horn doing? What next goofball scheme will he foist on you soft headed liberals?
Sure seems like a sucker town for stupid public projects.
I’m loving the weekly story about them putting the wrong rail lines in the tunnel. Gee, was only 10 yrs ago…
Wait righton, you were right in there with the ‘gas tax violates the will of the people’ crowd.
Are you for following the will of the people or against? Or are you only for honoring the will of the people if you personally benefit?
No, Bill, what I’d like is your upper limit on how much this costs before you say “enough”. It sounds like there’s no limit at all. If it cost each of us $10,000/year for car tabs, would that be okay with you since “we voted for it”?
I doubt even the most diehard monorail supporters would claim that they voted on a monorail, cost be damned. The actual vote authorizing the monorail had provisions for a revote if it couldn’t be built as advertised. Instead of doing what they are obligated to do, the monorail board wants to just keep fudging the numbers until they get the result they like.
Ohhh I see, so you are saying that the original vote called for a revote, not simply killing the project, but, hey voters be damned you want it killed so screw the voters. Is that right?
re: .10 WTF? I’m an idiot for what? You’re making no sense at all. The fact that there was a loophole in car registrations was known. That wasn’t the entire cause of the 30% shortfall, but it contributed. Which cretin thought there would be no evasion at all.
Nothing unforeseeable happened, except to those in deep denial, but I’m an idiot because I predicted accurately exactly what ended up happening? Ooookay. That’s quite the revisionist definition of a word.
The only thing that makes me happier than seeing this dog taken out and shot is watching its supporters bleat about it. Where do I go to get my car tab money back?
Great…well, I’m sure we’ll have true mass transit in Seattle by, oh, maybe 2050? This is such a back-ass city, pretending to be “progressive”. I really find it quite pathetic.
I’m fine with a revote. Bring it on. Even the addlepated voters of Seattle have likely finally been beaten with the 2×4 long enough to see the light.
I am sure you are fine with a revote, you’ll just ignore it one more time if Seattle votes for a monorail again.
Why doesn’t light rail count as mass transit? Before anyone pigeonholes me as anti-all transportation projects, I voted for light rail and I’m planning on voting to support the gas tax.
And, Bill, I’m not in any position to ignore a vote. Just like everyone else, if it goes up for a revote and passes, I’ll continue to throw my hard-earned money at this misguided project.
light rail is certainly mass transit. and i am sure if there had been a grass-roots effort for seattle light-rail instead of monorail that would have been passed by voters. i don’t think people here care what form it takes, we just need a mass transit system — monorail, light rail, streetcar, whatever! is there another US city of over half a million people that doesn’t have mass transit other than buses? i can’t think of one.
I wonder if Mayor Nickels would buy a beta-max recorder I have in the basement. By the time he gets off the banwagon, Jetson’s will have already delivered on that promise of flying cars.
Let’s get a mayor who is a little more current. Vote Rasputin in ’05. Who’s with me?
Oh and Bill @ 3
For the record, an $11 Billion monorail never passed in any election in Seattle. So your ‘will of the people’ comment is pointless.
I along with most people would support the monorail packages, that passed, but unfortunately, the city was not able to deliver that. The monorail folks either misinterpreted, misunderstood, or flat out lied about what the plan would cost.
Heath at 10
It is an interesting point that drivers “were allowed” to register vehicles out side of the district.
This is true, however, at no point and time did King County offer to share the revenue with the Kittitas, Pierce, Snohomish, Kitsap, or Thurston County Sheriffs to enforce the tax.
Why should these other county’s taxpayers pay to have their officer’s chase down King Counties tax dollars?
What is in it for them?
I don’t disagree with your point, all I am saying is that King County put on a tax that was not enforcable.
I certainly hope SMA does the right thing and proposes a responsible MASSIVE moonbat tax to pay for the monorail. Bygawd, once a gummint project is started it must finish no matter what it costs, no matter how long it takes, and regardless of whether or not it actually accomplishes something. After all, there are all those union jobs and the high paying jobs running the whole thing. Those people are ENTITLED to unlimited access to moonbat money.
The City of Seattle and its resident moonbats have a duty to the rest of the state, and to the rest of the nation to be a beacon we can all look to in order to observe the loony cesspool of liberalism.
MORE TAXES !!!!
MORE TAXES !!!!
MORE TAXES !!!!
PIE@25 –
King County could have enforced the tax by comparing changes in vehicle address with changes in postal address. I’m saying that King County government deliberately didn’t bother — and made an announcement to that effect at the time.
OK, lets do what you say, the fact is, now king county official has jurisdiction to come investigate anything on my property in Thurston County.
Even if they find it, they still need an official to still go and verify that the person is actually not living where the vehicle owner claims. For the most part, only local officials have that authority.
I doubt King County vehicle tax fraud, is on the top of Sheriff Edwards list of priorities in Thurston County.
My point is the tax was not enforceable. Chasing it down would have cost more than it would have brought in.
Geez, do I have to think of everything? I think SMP should just declare an “emergency” and go ahead with the project. Shit, that’s Seattle Librulism 101. Screw all the concerns. Spend the money. Get it built. Deal with problems later on somebody else’s watch.
We need to come up with funding plans that are economically sustainable and enforceable for transportation.
We need to talk about local tolls. If it is good enough for the Tacoma Narrows, I think its good enough for 520 and the Viaduct. That won’t get us all the way, but it is a piece of the puzzle.
Raising the car tab fee from $30 to a reasonable $50 or $60 with a constitutionally protected increase rate equal to that of inflation, should be discussed.
We could talk about an elimination of the gas tax on 10%+ biodiesel and 20%+ ethanol. Not a money maker, but it will help with oil consumption.
Why not breakdown the numbers on a mileage tax (a half a penny per mile for the state and half a penny per mile local or something like that) coupled with an constatutional ban on the gas tax.
We should discuss tax credits for using mass transit. If the bus driver swipes you card XX number of times, you can deduct YY amount of your taxes. That is a way to shift general fund surpluses to the transit budget. It would be nice to find a way to do it without using the Feds as a middle man (still working on that).
The problem is that Olympia, Seattle, KC Council, WSDOT, or anyone else have failed to bring an original idea to the table in any of our lifetimes. Think about, the idea of the monorail predates the World’s Fair in Seattle. If it’s such a swell idea, why hasn’t it happened in half a century?
Lets talk lightrail, running state owned tracks from Chahalis to Marysville, limiting ferry runs to commute times only, and for pete’s sake, get something that goes from Everett to the airport and down to Tacoma.
Re @ 27; Sorry Heath I was throwing sock balls at the dog.
Should read: No King County official has jurisdiction to come investigate…
I don’t get Goldy’s filter. I don’t think I am being filtered out. But everytime I put in suggested policy type stuff, it doesn’t show up right away.
It eventually appears, but it is hours later.
Nickels shouldn’t have done this. This should have gone back to the voters. They voted 4 times for the Monorail. That should have earned them the right to decide this time around too.
I don’t want to type it all out again, so here is the skinny;
Funding:
Raise car tab fees to a reasonable $50 or $60 with a constitutionally protected growth rate equal to inflation.
Partially fund mega-projects with local tolls. If it’s good enough for the Tacoma Narrows, it’s good enough for 520 and the Viaduct.
Performance audits; yes, we need them. no, they will not solve everything. They will get us maybe a tenth of the way there, if we are lucky but, that’s still a tenth.
Find an alternative to the obviously unpopular gas tax. maybe a milage tax (1/2 cent state & 1/2 cent local per mile). If you drive 25K a year, that is $250 annually.
Drop the gas tax completely or cut it in half with exceptions on 10%+ biodiesel and 20%+ ethanol. Mandate a 2/3 majority to raise the gas tax or eliminate it constitutionally.
Drop the idea of monorail and look at lightrail or something else. Think about state and city owned tracks from Chehalis to Marysville. That’s a start. Sounder may not be that great know, but it is a foundation for 2025
That is the reader’s digest of my alternative plan to transportation. I am nobody special, I have no back ground in any of this and neither do most of you. But lets hear some of your ideas. Maybe something original and practical will come of it.
Goldy; the pragmatist in you? Huh; lib w/ common sense. Must be hidden in your appendix or little toe.
thor @ 8
Do you have the slightest idea how hard it is to build a subway system in Seattle? Look at the now defunct Capital Hill station; are you ready to ride an elevator 250 feet under ground to catch the train?
If the topology of Seattle weren’t bad enough, the geology is even worse. Do you remember how the dug the new I-90 tunnels? They drilled a number of “small” bores that now encircle each tunnel, filled them with concrete and then dug out the dirt for the tunnels. You see, digging tunnels in soil is very difficult and in sand it is worse. (you do remember when the bus tunnel mole got stuck in sand at the corner of 3th and Pike.)
I was for it, voted for it at least twice, and voted for the recall last year. Perhaps it is time to consider more reasonable alternatives like Bus Rapid Transit and Streetcars to move more people across the Duwamush. Bus Rapid Transit might require a new bridge or a better dedicated lane on the high-level, and going in both directions. I heard on a streetcar board(Build the Streetcar.org) that a streetcar could use the Low-Level bridge across the Duwamush. I at first debunked the idea, but then changed my mind after looking at the poster’s comments more closely, and he had specifically mentioned the low-bridge. I guess the impacts of the bridge having to open up a few times is bad. The only reason why I would think the Monorail to West Seattle, provided it runs through White Center and then linked up with 509 would be a good idea, even with this fiasco is the un-impeded Duwamush Crossing that piggybacking on the High-Level West Seattle Bridge would do.
The Aurora or SR99 Corridor makes sense due to terrain features, and perhaps possibly piggybacking on the Aurora Bridge(if possible). The Interurban used that corridor, but had to go through Phinney Ridge, and Fremont and use the Fremont Bridge because first the Aurora had not been built yeat, and second, Highway 99 had already destroyed the Tacoma Interurban. Perhaps To Seattle By Trolley should have been required reading for the planners.
Reply to 32
Your alternative funding idea doesn’t work. The mileage tax idea is being looked at as an alternative in a number of places. Britain, Oregon, and also here in Washington, to name three places. If you think people don’t like the gas tax, just wait until you see their reaction to a mileage tax. For this system to work you have to have some sort of GPS transponder in all vehicles so they can be tracked and billed accordingly.
As for raising car tab fees by a reasonable amount. That was done in the 2005 transportation package, but Tim Eyman has been promising to run his “grandson of 695” initiative next year to lower all license tab fees to $30 again.
A new 520 bridge will be partially paid for with tolls; this has already been made very clear in case you have not been listening.
Markq;
“Does not work” and “is unpopular” are different concepts.
Part of the unpopularity (I agree with you exist), is the fear that this would come in and gas tax would continue to rise. We would have just another fee. By eliminating or greatly reducing the gas tax and constutionally protecting people from a gas tax increase beyond nomal inflation, it becomes much more attractive.
Your GPS thing is totally wrong. The way the collection works is at anytime, you can go online and pay upto however many miles you like on a vim number. You can pay for miles you don’t use if you choose. For a car to sell, the seller must have the odometer paid off. That is how it is done without a GPS. Every time you register your car or do emissions (where applicable) you would have your odometer read and pay up to that. You could lie, but when you sell the car it bites you in the butt. Also, I would argue that Washington has not taken a “serious” at alternatives to the gas tax, only adding “another leg” to the stool.
Car tabs were not done in the 2005-2007 Transportation Budget. Car tabs cost $30 (at the state level) Don’t believe me, registar you car in Colville (The have not local charges). “Vehicle weight fees” were added, at 2am, on a Saturday morning, in the back room of some Oly office, with an emergency clause attached. I am not saying it was a “bad idea” just that it could have not been presented and sold the public worse. A moderate/reasonable tab increase can work as part of a “Complete Overhaul” of the transit funding system, protected by the constitution to control the rate of increase.
Actually, tolls have not been signed into any Regional Transit Plan for Seattle/King County. They have been talked about, but nothing has been signed by Sims or Nickels. When a Regional Transit Plan is approved with tolls, then you can say tolls partially paying for it. Again, tolls are going to become a reality.
The overall point. The current system for funding transit, is not “bad”, it is a total disaster. The system was designed before any of us knew how to drive. Transit needs have changed over the years. A completely new system needs to be designed with that in mind.
I was not totally against the Transportation Package, nor am I totally on fire about I-912, but if/when it passes, this is a great opportunity for our leadership to offer a “New Deal” on transit funding. I doubt they will, they will probably just keep rehashing the same ideas. Never the less, I-912 is giving Olympia an opportunity to show some leadership and thus far, they are failing.
Hey P.I.E. @ 32
You have some good ideas but I think you’d find that a mileage fee is vastly more unpopular than gas taxes – and no one has figured out a workable way to collect it yet. I’m afraid we’d be waiting a very long time – and the costs of everything we need to build would skyrocket while we wait. We need to fix our roads now to save money. We need to quit the dithering – I 912 is dithering.
Your ideas on tax sources sound a lot like the oil companies ideas – anything but the gas tax. Or at least make it harder, if not next to impossible, to raise the gas tax.
New ideas are needed. How about trying repeal of the oil company exemption for paying sales tax on gas? So that gas is taxed like every other retail item?
We could write off the sales taxes we pay on our federal tax returns. The legislature would never need to raise the gas tax again. It would fund both road and transit projects – state and local.
And no one would need to consider raising local sales taxes higher to pay for the roads – a choice forced on all of us by the standard oil company refrain to the legislature:
“See things out way or we’ll pull out our check books and spend millions make your life a living hell – you never win another election and we’ll pay for an initiative to defeat anything you try to do that interferes with our interests.”
And no one would need to pit road and transit needs against the state’s education needs in a fight about who gets the returns from any new sales taxes – perhaps the major reason why any regional transportation improvement package has stalled.
And instead of initiatives that pit some republicans against democrats, like I-912, we could have an election about the real cause of our failure to fix the roads: the greed of oil companies and their control of the state legislature.
This is a topic the MSM has long ignored. And its a scandal.
I voted for the first original Monorail votes when I was living in Seattle, now i’m living in Everett. But if I was living in Seattle again, Nickels would be losing my vote for mayor… How many F’ing times do you have to say yes to one project?
Until they build it the length they said they would and for the budget they proposed when it was voted upon.
The Space Needle and the Monorail made such an attractive image in my mind as I sought (from Denver,CO) to imagine what would be the most positive big move I could make for the final move of my life. I have never been happier in my whole life as in the time I’ve spent in King ,Cty. I wish I’d got here 30 years ago. I believe, as an outsider who has not a deep understanding of this area, that an improved and enlarged monorail system can be nothing but good for this area. Why listen to people like Stefan Sharansky whose answer to everything is NO!!! Say YES to a big dream sometimes. I think you’ll like the end result a whole lot more than NO!!!!!!!
Lucy – Will you be willing to turn over your entire pittance paycheck to make it happen? Can you talk with your money, not with your keyboard and not with my money?
re 43: This post is exactly why you need to be banned. You’re an obdurate asshole with no redeeming social qualities. These stupid , evil slams with no rhyme, reason, or point to them is what scares away decent people of liberal or conservatve persuasion. In short, MTR, you are an embarrassment to yourself and your party, and just another millstone around the neck of humanity. On your deathbed all your nearest and dearest will be counting the moments ’til you’re finally gone for good. You know this is true.
Thor @ 39; I may be to late for you or anyone to read this;
I agree with you that a milage tax is a tough sell. That is why it would only fly with a complete overhaul of transit funding, not on its own.
Collection structure already exist. It would be administed through DOL, when you pay your tabs, you pay your yearly milage ($125 on 12,500 miles, not to steep). DOLs system is already designed to distribute local and state funds in the same transaction. Think state tab fee and Monorail tax in Seattle as an example. For the price of a software update, the program could be implemented.
There are distinct economic advantages on a milage tax over a gas tax. Both charge more to those that use more, so that drive more, so that is a wash. A milage tax is paid by just the drive, if it caused inflation throughout the whole system (as a raise in gas prices/taxes tend to do), industries could be specifically exempt to control cost (agriculture for example) – farm equipment does not normally drive on 520 but they still pay 31 cents a gallon (mostly driving on private property)
Also, fuel efficient vehicles could be exempt or pay a lower rate, if the state so chooses. A gas tax can not discriminate between a Hummer who takes up a damages more road and a lawnmower that never touches the road.
Oil companies aren’t the biggest complaintance of the gas tax. They don’t pay it, technically speaking, the gas tax is charged to fuel station operates at the time they purchase it from suppliers. (Again, technically, you and I don’t directly pay a gas tax)-I know that’s a technically, but that is who argues the most about the gas tax.
I do like your idea of charging the same rate as regular sales tax(if we are sticking to the idea of gas tax as the main funding source). The issue is that a $3 gallon of gas would charge on 24 cents a gallon. If gas got down to $1.50 again (in our dreams), that gallon now only generates 12 cents. The transit budget would me much more volital and subject to OPEC or Federal policies like ANWR. It is a much less stable tax, but I like your thinking.
That gap between our current 31 cents a gallon at that would have to be filled by something else.
I agree with you that overhauling transit funding is a tough sell. I still am not totally sure how to vote on 912 (I really do hear both sides), but I think it is going to pass regardless. Out of that, a trumendous opportunity to for our elected officials to show some leadership.
Again, I agree with you for the most part and appreciate you bringing up a fresh idea in this forum, that does not normally happens
Where is written that any mass transit system has to be slower that the “pie-in-the-sky boondoggle” of personal status symbols moving inches at a time burning $3 a gallon gasoline over pothole ridden publicly financed roadways that get filled to the brim the minute they’re built? Light rail is no faster than the slug-paced bus system Hummer drivers no-so-secretly refer to as “the loser cruiser”. The monorail, while maybe not as good an idea as the pnuematic tubes in the opening sequence of Matt Groening’s “Futurama”, is still the best idea anyone has come up with since Seattle sent its Federally Funded Subway System to Atlanta. Sure Joel Horn cocked it up royally (though the Commons was also a fine idea: ask the residents of their respective cities to give up Central or Golden Gate parks), a REAL LEADER would have seen the merits, and figured out a way to come up with the money. Instead we get “fiscal adults” like Greg Nickels jumping on board with the “Cars Won! Cars Won!” Kemper Freemans and Martin Seligs of our increasingly L.A. like region. You “not with MY money” republican types really need to spend some quality time in places like Los Angeles and Houston so you can see the realization of what you’re so stupidly pining for. Those places already exist, and they suck mightily. We are one stray missile, one jihadist car bomb away from gas lines that will make those of the 70’s seem dreamy, and the day we kick ourselves in the ass for not doing SOMETHING is not far away. Idiots.
Let’s compare the Monorail to Sound Transit’s light rail boondoggle.
First the monorail costs less per mile to build (actual construction costs, not financing costs).
Second the monorail actually goes somewhere as opposed to stopping a mile short of the airport. The corridors it serves are currently plagued with slow infrequent and crowded bus service. No amount of complaining to Metro or the King County Council seems to bring any real improvements to West Seattle or Ballard bus service.
Third the monorail will take less time to build. While Sound Transit will have their trolley to nowhere up and running before the monorail could be finished the monorail will still take less time from start of construction until opening than the current light rail line.
Fourth as a grade-separated system the monorail will be faster than Sound Transit’s light rail system. The light rail trains will be forced to wait for traffic in Rainer Valley and SODO just like the busses are. Also as a grade separated system the trains can be automated saving on operating costs.
The two problems with the current monorail system are a botched financing package that takes far too long to pay off the bonds and results in a poor bond rating; and poor leadership from the board and management. The second problem seems unfortunately to be endemic to most large projects in the area. Anyone remember the first few years of Sound Transit where they insisted there was the money to go to Northgate and the whole system would be complete in only a few years?
I will vote for the monorail again if a realistic financing package is added this time out. If that means using sales taxes and property tax financed bonds so be it.