Report challenges monorail's growth

A regional economist thinks the Seattle Monorail Project could be in worse shape than thought earlier, based on a report he released this week.

Dick Conway now predicts that car-tab taxes for the monorail will grow only 4.4 percent a year, which is even lower than the 4.8 percent he suggested in December 2003.

SMP Finance Director Jonathan Buchter criticized Conway's assumption that the city's population of drivers between the ages of 20 and 64 will stagnate.

"I think he's wrong," Buchter said.

The monorail's own consultants, Portland-based ECONorthwest, have predicted gains of 6.1 percent a year.

The total value of vehicles in Seattle has grown an average 9 percent annually since 1975, and Buchter said he doubts future growth will plummet by half, as Conway predicts.

A proposed $2.1 billion monorail construction plan is on hold, partly because of cash-flow shortages caused by estimating errors made three years ago, and by people evading the tax.

Even at 6.1 percent growth, the plan would have required 50 years of taxes. SMP is considering new finance strategies or delays to some segments of its Ballard-to-West Seattle line.

Conway is the official revenue forecaster for Sound Transit, which assumes 4.5 percent annual car-tax growth in its "North King County" zone of Seattle, Shoreline and Lake Forest Park.

According to his new report, car values throughout King County, including suburbs, gained only 2.3 percent a year from 2000-04, a period that included a recession.

Conway's numbers suggest SMP can afford two-thirds of the system backers hoped they could build, said Ben Porter, a transit-finance expert. Porter recently challenged SMP's tax predictions in a report for the Building Owners and Managers Association of Seattle, which has recently criticized the project.

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