Will the wild ride of its history lead to an expanded monorail?

When I accepted the challenge of serving as an independent financial-policy analyst to the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP), I knew I was in for a wild ride.

Having played a similar role with Sound Transit, I understood I'd be asking tough questions, pushing for systems and controls to assure financial accountability and working to eliminate lower priority elements of the agency's plan.

In other words, I didn't expect to make very many new friends.

The monorail obviously matters greatly to Seattle. The voters of Seattle have approved the project four times. It demands the most careful consideration.

In the past month-and-a-half, I've observed some things worth sharing.

I am genuinely surprised that the staff and the board have stayed with this project, in spite of harsh and frequent criticism. Clearly, the people working on the SMP are deeply committed to this endeavor.

This project is typical of large public-works projects. The voters approve a vision, and a large, billion-dollar organization springs into being. While large private construction organizations begin with a vision and grow into a billion-dollar concern over many years, the SMP, like Sound Transit before it, was expected to behave like such an organization from Day One.

Patience and understanding are essential in giving such an organization a chance to succeed. But public impatience and criticism are understandably an inherent part of the equation, too. The citizenry has a vested interest in how tax dollars are spent and how their communities are affected. It's a classic dilemma.

In 2001, Sound Transit faced an intense public-relations nightmare. Yet, today, the project is surging forward, building what was promised and under budget. Given a chance to grow into its size and complexity, Sound Transit has managed to turn things around. Not easy, not without mistakes, but certainly possible.

One key is in sharing information and engaging the entire organization. In the early years, Sound Transit suffered from information-hoarding by a too-tight inner circle. This impeded progress and efficiency and invited public distrust and criticism.

As Sound Transit evolved and matured, the organization has become much better connected, collaborative and collectively in tune with the Sound Transit vision and objectives.

SMP has suffered similar circumstances. But recently SMP has significantly improved organization-wide engagement and information sharing. This has been especially evident in the way the board has handled the challenges of the past few months — by opening up instead of clamming up and hunkering down. I've witnessed the development of a much clearer and more defensible plan of action.

One very critical question has not been asked often enough: What is the cost for not building the monorail? As important as the project-cost questions are, it is equally important to consider the very real long-term costs of not building the SMP.

The vision for this project was not some collective need for a frivolous toy. The vision is for a thriving 21st-century city connected by efficient, high-capacity transit and relieved of the choking congestion that lands Seattle on too many "worst traffic" lists nationwide.

Seattle's economic growth depends on this vision to ensure the smooth movement of people, the ability to efficiently handle the high volume of freight going in and out of the Port of Seattle, and to bear the commuting burden of large regional employers like Boeing.

Can the monorail work financially? Working with staff, I've already identified ways to reduce the cost of the financing plan from $11.4 billion to about $7 billion. Possible construction-cost reductions appear to be in the $50 million to $150 million-plus range — figures which over the long term could trim another $1.8 billion from the plan. This is just over half of the total cost in the original plan rejected by the board in June.

Until this analysis is completed, it is premature to talk about ending the project or to ask for more money.

Bottom line? We are quickly approaching Mayor Greg Nickels' Sept. 15 deadline, at which time he's asked the SMP board to inform the city how it intends to proceed. We will meet the mayor's request and demonstrate a clear and workable path for the Seattle Monorail Project.