Big monorail fan might backtrack

By Mike Lindblom
Seattle Times staff reporter

JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES Bobby Inshetski is flanked by Cassandra Conyers, left, and Sarah Sanwell, who are owners of condo units in West Seattle, where the planned monorail would be a matter of feet from their windows. Inshetski, once a big monorail supporter, is unsure now.

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When officials from the Seattle Monorail Project pay homage to the monorail movement's grass-roots heritage, they're talking about citizens like Bobby Inshetski.

"I simply love the monorail," he says.

Driving under the city's old one-mile monorail on Fifth Avenue, he would cheer when a train passed above the sunroof. He voted yes on the 2002 initiative to build a new 14-mile monorail from West Seattle to Ballard. Then he volunteered for the project, answering questions at Bumbershoot and neighborhood festivals.

Inshetski bought a second-floor condominium along the route on California Avenue Southwest in West Seattle last June — at a time when the agency was publishing verdant visions of a train soaring above the center of the street through a canopy of trees.

What he didn't know was that the final plan would permit trains to pass as close as 6½ feet from the bay windows at his building. He said overhead tracks would block the only sunlight into the apartments of Inshetski and many of his neighbors in the Serrano, a 34-unit condominium.

Now Inshetski is considering whether to join a campaign to repeal the monorail plan.

"They affected not just all the residents, but one of their most faithful workers," he says. "If they could do that to a volunteer, then how would other people feel?"

Disputes reach council

Disputes between apartment dwellers along the proposed route and monorail planners have reached the City Council, which is debating whether to push the tracks farther toward the street in a few areas.

Under monorail plans now, the minimum gap between buildings and the train is only 6½ feet, although the proposed distance is greater in most areas. The monorail agency and the Seattle Department of Transportation want the tracks on the sides of the streets instead of blocking car traffic and left-turn lanes.

The tightest locations are California Avenue Southwest, West Harrison Street west of Seattle Center, and a few blocks in Ballard, monorail diagrams show.

The monorail board also considered coming within 6½ feet of downtown buildings. But an uproar by landowners prompted the monorail board to change that gap to 9 feet. On Monday, the City Council mandated the trains be at least 14 feet from buildings along Second Avenue.

That's triggered new arguments about what to do everywhere else.

On California Avenue Southwest councilmen Richard McIver and Peter Steinbrueck have proposed at least a 10-foot margin, which would ensure the trains run above the street instead of the sidewalk.

"I'm asking for the same protection for West Seattle residents as we do for downtown," McIver said.

But council members Nick Licata and council President Jan Drago argue it would be irresponsible to micromanage the track layouts without understanding the consequences.

Monorail and city transportation officials think a middle-of-the-street alignment on California Avenue would create problems. It would eliminate a two-way left-turn lane, cause expensive construction conflicts with an underground sewer line, require four new traffic lights, and displace 48 more parking spots than the westside alignment.

Inshetski says the City Council is his last hope, after a petition drive to require a center-of-the-street alignment on California failed to produce results.

Groups pushed changes

Meanwhile, his neighbors have watched stronger, better-organized special-interest groups win concessions.

Lower Queen Anne businesses and theaters pushed the route away from their front doors into Seattle Center. Well-organized residents in Delridge successfully fought to move a station from Longfellow Creek to industrial land at the Nucor Steel mill. The agency approved adding a right-angle turn in Sodo, slowing the trains, because of business resistance to a straighter route.

Monorail officials say they've tried to reduce the bulk of their system.

In October, Executive Director Joel Horn unveiled a "single-beam" concept, where northbound and southbound trains share a single track, reducing the size of the concrete structures for most of California Avenue. (However, monorail builders are not required to propose a single beam in their construction bids.)

Inshetski, a 35-year-old medical dosimetrist who plans radiation treatment for cancer patients, assumed the entire avenue would be single-tracked. Instead, he stopped by a monorail open house in November and saw the diagram of dual tracks running right outside his window.

"You're not going to believe this," he told his neighbor, Cassandra Conyers. "This is the worst thing that can happen."

Lessening the impact

Monorail officials say they've tried to reduce the impact. Board member Cindi Laws and an outreach worker met with 15 residents. A large overhead monorail switch outside the building was moved south, next to a drugstore parking lot.

Train noise would have no significant impact because of slow speeds in and out of the switch, according to the environmental-impact statement.

Monorail spokesman Eric Wilson said nearly all buildings on California Avenue are at least 10 feet from trains, while only a dozen housing units protrude closer toward the route. One remedy could be cantilevered columns, shaped like an upside-down L, that provide an extra foot of separation.

Inshetski says that any route on the west side of the street would remove too many trees. In a message to Drago, he suggested terminating the monorail at the Alaska Junction station two blocks north, avoiding California Avenue entirely.

The monorail planning was based, in part, on the idea that trains would benefit those living in condos, particularly in fast-growing West Seattle. As recently as 1995 there was talk of seceding from the city to keep out "urban villages." Instead the anti-growth movement has gone dormant and high-rises are replacing old houses along the main streets.

The metamorphosis creates an ideal setting for monorail, Seattle Monorail Project Chairman Tom Weeks said in a tour during the 2002 campaign.

Population density near new transit lines ought to provide more riders, reducing the demand for sprawl and highways — a premise that underpins the entire Seattle area's growth management policy.

"It will be a positive thing for West Seattle," said John Wunder of Associates West Real Estate, which manages the older Granada condos nearby. "It will be easy to get downtown. It will alleviate a lot of buses that come through here." The new Adelaide complex next door is nearly sold out, evidence a monorail won't wreck property values, he says.

The monorail needs to go to Southwest Morgan Street to serve the burgeoning population, Wunder said.

The 2002 initiative made it illegal to build less than the entire 14 miles as promised from Ballard to West Seattle, unless voters repeal the entire project.

Wunder also prefers a center alignment, but says the monorail is more important than views over the street. "In reality, what's it really going to block?" he said.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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