Center's aging monorail needs $4.5 million in fixes, official says

The 44-year-old Seattle Center Monorail, which stalled twice this month with passengers aboard, cannot operate reliably without a multimillion-dollar overhaul, the line's executive director says.

Some of the power-supply equipment, wiring and air systems that control the brakes and doors need replacing, says Tom Albro of Seattle Monorail Services (SMS), which runs the city-owned system.

No date has been set for reopening the line, which is undergoing tests. But if the improvements aren't made before a restart, more stalls will occur, Albro said.

"What I need is for the public to accept, the mayor to accept, that we need $4.5 million worth of work," he said.

On Aug. 20, at least 200 riders were stranded until another train could be dispatched to retrieve them. Another stall had happened a week earlier.

The line had reopened Aug. 11 after a nine-month shutdown to repair body damage from a November collision and add an automatic braking system to prevent crashes.

Some activists and elected officials are now asking if the monorail has reached the end of its lifespan.

"It's like having a used car. You keep patching it together, patching it together, and you eventually think, you should have a new car," said Councilman Tom Rasmussen, standing beneath the tracks last week. "We need an assessment as to whether it's worth patching together. When it goes by, I really wonder what's going to fall off, what's going to happen next."

Mayor Greg Nickels appears determined to restart the trains, once he's assured they won't stop midtrack.

"It's an iconic piece of Seattle, and I don't think the mayor supports ideas about tearing it down," Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis said.

Aging trains

City officials were cautioned in a 1999 city audit that the trains were already well beyond their expected lifespan of 30 years.

The age of the trains, and their ability to do the job, has been under discussion at other times as well:

• During an aborted effort to build the 14-mile "Green Line" monorail through the city's west side, backers argued the original line was decrepit and due for replacement.

• Passengers have been evacuated from a stalled monorail six times in the past five years, and during a fire in 2004 and the crash in 2005.

• A year ago, Virginia Anderson, then-director of Seattle Center, said the system showed "an increasing number of cracks" patched with "baling wire and chewing gum."

• In March, SMS submitted to the City Council a $4.3 million list of items needing repair, some discovered in the 1990s. Problems include rough track surfaces, worn suspension parts and an unreliable loading gate at the Westlake Center station.

The city and SMS decided to treat those as a "Phase 2," to be dealt with once the trains got up and running in 2006. Monorail rehab wasn't considered for the city's $1.6 billion fall ballot measure for transportation projects.

Aging parts apparently caught up with the monorail this month. Albro said the Aug. 13 stall involved electric motors and an air compressor, "both of which were on the list." It's unclear, he said, what caused the Aug. 20 stall.

The city doesn't fund the line from local taxes, instead relying on income from ticket sales, plus federal grants totaling $2.6 million since 1994. The city suspended requests for the Federal Transit Administration money from 2003 to 2005, when it looked as though the monorail would be demolished to build the Green Line.

Before the fire, the monorail turned a $400,000 profit for Seattle Center in a good year, money that might have gone back into train maintenance but instead helped fund other Center programs.

SMS has an incentive to restart because ticket income would help it recover money the company spent to fix and fireproof the trains. To stay eligible for federal aid, the monorail needs to be operating. Also, politically, if the trains keep rolling, there may be more public enthusiasm to invest in them.

The Center's redevelopment director, Shelly Yapp, said a "service orientation" was the motivation to aim for a summer restart. "It's an important link to us," Yapp said. About 2 million people a year ride the monorail.

Several City Council members said while they were aware the trains were old, they weren't warned specifically about breakdowns.

Albro said he had anticipated stalls could happen, as in the past. But not two in the first 10 days after service was restarted.

He said he considers the trains safe — in fact, part of the challenge is that they're calibrated to stop when the slightest problem is detected. The company is required, in its contract with the city, to keep the trains on schedule 99.5 percent of the time or face financial penalties.

Ceis said reporters are making too much of the monorail's troubles. Buses break down without much attention, he said.

"No one's at fault," he said. "You've got to let SMS get through the diagnostic work, get done, let them fix it."

Asked if the city should consider a change in operating companies, Ceis said, "I think SMS has shown itself to be a very responsible operator of the system. They have stepped up every time there's been a problem with these cars, partnered with the city to resolve the problem, and they continue to do that with us."

Heavyweight tests

Outside experts have been brought in to give advice: Booz Allen Hamilton, which helped troubleshoot the Las Vegas Monorail when it broke down during startup two years ago; Elcon, an electric contractor for Sound Transit's upcoming light-rail line; and King County Metro Transit.

Monorail engineers have loaded 12 tons of steel plates into the trains, to mimic a full load. Tests before this month's startup were done with empty trains.

Metro's maintenance manager, Jim Boon, said historically, SMS has done a good job keeping the 1962 World's Fair trains running. Based on his experience with trolleys, he said, it's difficult to restart electric vehicles after they have gathered moisture for months, as the monorail did.

"An electric motor is made to run, not sit. They ought to be running the trains all night long, until they break in," he said.

Meanwhile, former Green Line campaigners Peter Sherwin and Patrick Kylen are organizing a coalition to consider replacing the monorail with a Fifth Avenue streetcar. Rasmussen said the city also should consider a new 1-mile monorail, possibly in a public-private partnership. If Seattle chooses to keep its historic train in the sky, the federal government is expected to provide a $2.8 million, three-year grant for repair and upgrades.

But with so many other local transportation problems, Councilman Richard Conlin doubts the city will focus on replacing the monorail.

"If they get things straightened out, and it's able to limp along, I think it's several years before we do the analysis," he said.

Anderson, the longtime Center director, was dismayed to hear a talk-show caller refer to the monorail as a toy. "We've gotten an incredible deal out of the monorail," she said. "We can say it's a toy, or say it's a link between downtown and Seattle Center. I'm hopeful we will invest in it for the long term."

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