Monorail dream reaches end of line

Seattle voters have abandoned the dream of building the nation's longest monorail line, but they will keep paying for the project a while longer.

Proposition 1, which would have authorized the Seattle Monorail Project to go forward with plans for a scaled-back elevated train line from Interbay to West Seattle, was soundly defeated Tuesday night.

The defeat means the financially troubled project will fold. But city drivers will keep paying the SMP's car-tab tax for about two more years to help retire the agency's debt of $110 million.

Seattle voters supported the monorail idea four times, including passing a vehicle tax to fund the project in 2002. Just last year, nearly two-thirds of city voters rejected a measure that would have shut down the project.

But confidence in the SMP's ability to build the original, proposed 14-mile line at an affordable price has plummeted since then.

Earlier this year, the agency released a proposed construction contract that cost $300 million more than anticipated. And the car-tab tax was bringing in only about two-thirds as much money as project planners had estimated in 2002.

But it was the financing plan proposed last June for the $2.1 billion project that ignited the biggest political crisis. That plan called for taking at least 50 years to pay off the bonds, a longer period than is normally used in public transit projects. As a result, the total price tag, including interest charges, was estimated to be more than $11 billion.

The independent SMP board placed a shorter, less-expensive project on the ballot that officials said could be paid off in 38 years or less. But this new 10-mile-long route wouldn't reach Ballard, a neighborhood that had solidly backed the monorail in previous elections. James Tupper, chairman of the No on Monorail Proposition 1 campaign, said that, given the fact that people voted four times for monorail plans, "the deciding factor, if we prevail tonight, is that people have lost confidence in the project and in the agency to deliver."

He was confident that light rail and streetcars would be expanded further in the city. "What's really positive about this vote is this really gives us a chance to clean the slate and move forward at this point," he said.

The mood was bitter at a pro-monorail party in Pioneer Square. Volunteer Jean Darsie said that if the city had showed the same political will for monorail as for building new stadiums and a City Hall, a way could have been found to reach Ballard with a monorail line. She doubts that another citizen-led monorail movement will emerge.

"I don't think it will happen in the grass roots again. We've learned our lesson; we've been beaten up too bad," she said. "If something had a chance, people would rise to the occasion."

At the gathering, SMP board member Cleve Stockmeyer grabbed a small map showing monorail and Sound Transit routes and ripped it lengthwise, to show that the west side of the city was going to be left without a transit line.

"The political leadership has decided that this half of Seattle doesn't count," he said.

Board member Cindi Laws said the effort to build more transit will continue. She compared Seattle's monorail struggle to the 13-year period between America's Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Constitution.

"We feel defeated tonight. We feel the pain of 7, 8, 9 years of struggle," she said, adding later: "Nothing worth fighting for is easy. ... My friends, we are not giving up."

The SMP has already spent about $200 million for real estate, legal services, preliminary design, public outreach and other work.

In addition to taxes already collected, SMP borrowed $110 million.

The debt can be reduced by selling about $62 million worth of land the agency bought for proposed train stations.

Board members will meet tonight to discuss their next steps.

Before the election, they said that the agency would be dissolved as quickly as possible, and land already purchased for stations would be sold at market value. Interim Executive Director John Haley, a former Boston transit chief, has said he would leave soon if the measure lost, rather than work as a real-estate liquidator.

The monorail loss would leave the western third of the city with no clear prospects for a rapid-transit system, and a risk of stranding commuters if the crumbling Alaskan Way Viaduct were to close.

The Seattle Department of Transportation is beginning a study of post-SMP technologies, which agency officials say will take a year or so. One possibility, according to some transit supporters, is a spur connecting West Seattle to the Sound Transit light-rail project, due to open in 2009. But that might require a third Duwamish River bridge.

Board races

In a pair of SMP board races, anti-monorail challengers defeated pro-monorail incumbents.

Beth Goldberg, a King County budget analyst, beat incumbent Laws for Position 8. In a race for Position 9, Jim Nobles defeated incumbent Stockmeyer. Nobles is a bus commuter who supervises a refuge for street alcoholics.

Proposition 2, a proposal pushed by Stockmeyer to change three seats on the nine-member board from appointed to publicly elected positions, passed. It had no organized opposition.

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

Staff reporter Warren Cornwall contributed to this report.