Monorail: too much, too late?

The sole argument left for why we should build the monorail is that if we don't, one day we'll be sorry.

As silly as it sounds, this rationale is potent in Seattle. It popped into my own head recently with respect to the city's other mass-transit project, Sound Transit's light-rail line. I was south of downtown, not far from the stadiums, when I saw a cluster of blue steel beams arranged like a modern Stonehenge.

I asked a construction worker what it was. It's Seattle's first light-rail station, he said. It's finally here.

The station is about half-built. If you stand among the beams and look north, you can see a mile of freshly laid train tracks snaking off toward downtown skyscrapers.

It's part of the light-rail system voters approved nine years ago. At $223 million per mile, interest included, it's among the most expensive transit lines ever built in the U.S.

Is there any doubt we wouldn't be building it if we'd known beforehand what it would cost? Or how long it would take?

Yet today, Sound Transit is the oasis in our transportation desert. It's widely supported and eagerly awaited. As I envisioned trains whisking from downtown to the airport, I had to admit: Boondoggle it may be, but I'd sure be sorry if it wasn't being built.

All of which made me wonder, one last time, whether I can support the monorail. It's up for a fifth vote on Nov. 8.

Increasingly, I hear people saying they don't care what it costs, they're voting for the monorail anyway.

The monorail's new director, John Haley, has been going around saying we'll be so glad to have it if we won't remember the price. If we don't build it, we'll look back with regret because we'll have nothing.

Last week the monorail agency released new cost estimates. If all goes well, which it probably won't, the now 10-mile monorail will cost $4 billion or more, interest included.

That's $400 million per mile — nearly twice the rate as the light-rail line.

I'm one of those monorail dreamers. But $400 million a mile can even snap me back to reality.

Light-rail tracks are being set in earth right now, for a fraction of the monorail's cost. It cinches it for me: It's time to kill the monorail.

We don't have to settle for nothing. That new light-rail station is partway between downtown and West Seattle — the same route as the monorail. Why not send light rail the rest of the way there instead?

It'll be cheaper than the monorail. And the trains can use the tunnel downtown.

It's true I'd now be sorry if Sound Transit had died. I know I'll mourn the death of the dream of truly rapid, elevated transit.

But three years along, the monorail is as iffy as it is exorbitant. For the same money, we know we can build at least another light-rail line, maybe two.

Won't we be sorriest of all if we don't do that?

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.