SEATTLE – Mayor Greg Nickels on Friday withdrew support for an expanded Seattle monorail, a proposal approved four times by voters but mired in mounting financial troubles.
Nickels withdrew the Seattle Monorail Authority’s right to build the project on city streets, and called on the authority to put a measure on the November ballot to give voters a final say on the project.
A citywide monorail system has been a civic dream since a one-mile route was built for the Seattle World’s Fair in 1962. More than 40 years later, it’s still the only monorail in town.
The proposed 14-mile monorail would run from West Seattle through downtown to Ballard. But the expanded project’s dire financial picture became clear in June when the monorail board revealed it would cost $11 billion over 50 years, including more than $9 billion in interest on low-grade bonds – more than four times the project’s estimated cost.
Chairman Tom Weeks and director Joel Horn quit days after the monorail board rejected the plan.
A recent revision of the financial plan, which lowered the cost estimate to $7 billion, relies on what Nickels called the risky assumption that money from the authority’s car-tab tax will grow faster than some experts predict.
He also said the plan assumes the monorail will pay for itself after 2020 – something he said no transit operation in the nation has ever achieved.
The monorail board’s acting director, Kristina Hill, said the board was surprised by the mayor’s announcement.
“I think that leadership means solving the problem,” Hill said Friday, contending another vote won’t do that. Board members are confident they can move forward on the project without shortening the line or imposing new taxes, she said.
She called on monorail supporters to e-mail and call the mayor’s office to oppose a fifth vote.
Nickels has called for another transportation study, but Sherwin said more than a dozen such studies have already been done.
Nickels set a deadline of Thursday for the authority to propose a public ballot measure that would shorten the proposed line or increase taxes to pay for it. The deadline passed without a satisfactory response from the board, he said.
Nickels said he wants answers to these questions:
* Can the monorail finish building what it starts?
* Is the project financially viable now and in the future?
* Is the revised estimated cost of $7 billion an acceptable price to pay?
* Does this protect the taxpayers of Seattle from undue risk?
“I will not let a spade of dirt be turned until we have a financial plan that answers those four questions,” Nickels said.
Hill said the board would meet today to discuss Nickels’ ultimatum.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
