Monorail another Kingdome?

Now is when we monorail boosters should be the happiest.

The folks at Seattle Monorail just announced a major breakthrough in the region's sorry history of transit projects. They struck a deal to build all 14 miles of an elevated train system in five years, or else a private company gets fined $35,000 every day it's late.

There's a fixed construction price, with private companies on the hook for overruns.

Once the trains are running, they must be on schedule 99.5 percent of the time or the private companies get docked.

Finally, rapid transit is on the horizon. And someone has put accountability into one of our ballooning megaprojects.

So why do I feel so disappointed?

Yes, it's 25 percent more expensive than promised. But that's progress compared with, say, Sound Transit, where costs soared nearly 200 percent, so they cut the light-rail line in half. Or Sea-Tac's third runway, which now costs 92 percent more than budgeted.

So why was the applause so tepid at Monday night's unveiling of the landmark contract?

Why does it seem like the dreamers who fought to bring us the people's transit are less than enthusiastic now that it's on the verge of arriving?

It's partly continuing doubts about monorail finances. But it's also revealed by two architectural sketches in yesterday's Seattle Times. One, from 2003, shows the monorail's original "cool factor." Curving, stemlike steel girders support a slender guideway that scarcely blocks the view as it sluices down the street.

The other, released Monday, shows what is actually going to be built: bulky concrete columns with huge crossbeams that dominate the street. In architecture circles, they call this "brutalism." For good reason.

It turns out the columns will be larger than those of the monorail built 43 years ago for the World's Fair. In some places, the new columns will have twice the girth of the old.

For $2 billion, we ought to get a taste of sleek modernity, like the new downtown library. Or a whiff of classic concrete and black steel, like Safeco Field.

This feels more like the Kingdome. Blocky. Ugly. Functional. (There's a reason we blew that place up.)

It's a compromise the monorail folks made because they have a third less revenue than expected. I don't blame them for making it — at least it's functional — but I'm not sure the city can live with it.

People want the monorail because it's fast, electric and never stuck in traffic. They love it so much they've approved it four times, including last November after its financial flaws were known to all.

It has one main drawback: If poorly designed, it becomes a neighborhood-destroying wall of concrete. I'd guess people would even accept a shorter line in exchange for a sleeker, lighter design.

The monorail deserves credit for getting closer to proving wrong the naysayers who said it couldn't be done.

Now it should go back and renegotiate this contract to try to give us a little more of that old cool factor. And a lot less Kingdome brutalism.

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