Riding the rail
by Eric Scigliano
(published originally in the SeattleWeekly,
December 10, 1997, posted with permission)
Two weeks ago, the monorail initiative that Seattle voters
passed last month came as close as it's gotten so far to a public
hearing: an "environmental policy forum" sponsored by
the UW Graduate School of Public Affairs. Though it had no
official standing, the session gave a preview of the (lengthy)
debates to follow on the monorail plan and the partly overlapping
light-rail scheme already in design by the Regional Transit
Authority.
The preview gave a sense of the sort of passion the
initiative has aroused among people who aren't transit mavens or
partisans'and of the abiding suspicions of the RTA scheme, which
offers little evident improvement to Seattle residents. The most
ardent speakers were salt-of-the-earth frustrated transit riders.
One promising sign: Incoming City Council member Nick
Licata, who supported the Monorail Initiative, spoke most,
and most forcefully, at the forum; even the initiative's
often-voluble author, Dick Falkenbury,
deferred to him. Good thing, because Licata will be in a position
to do something about it.
RTA officials, who'd laid low during the campaign, declined
to attend. But the pressure's on to bring the two transit schemes
together. "We need to look at how we're spending the RTA
money," declared Licata, "and to ask how it can be, if
not shifted, then [used to integrate the monorail] into the RTA
system." He went on to ask the $800-million question:
"Do we really need that tunnel, with only two stations"
that the RTA plans to dig under First and Capitol Hills for its
rail?
Light-rail promoters are understandably loath to revisit that
sticky issue, since it raises a basic question about the RTA
plan: Is it designed to meet real needs or maximize ridership by
poaching routes already well served by some of Metro's most
efficient and heavily used services? But hey, everyone wants good
numbers.
Trouble is, however essential the RTA judges the tunnel to be
for speedy service to the U-District, it could be hell for
Capitol Hill and First Hill. How many riders will high-tail it a
single stop on each hill, then descend ten or more stories, in
order to get downtown? Easier to walk.
Monorail has
a surpassing advantage: Unlike conventional rail, it could
actually climb those hills. And real service to Pill Hill
Hospitals, Seattle U, SCC, and the Broadway strip will require
multiple stops. (see map)
The Rainier Valley, which both the monorail plan and RTA rail
would serve, offers another apparent instance of duplication. One
possible way to make two lines complementary there: Send the rail
from King Street Station up Jackson and Rainier and out MLK Way -
which can better spare the right-of-way to accommodate it than
Rainier - then down to Sea-Tac. Send monorail up Pill Hill to
Providence, down 23rd, and out Rainier, where it would present a
less intrusive elevated profile, and eventually to Renton.
Riders could switch between them where they cross, by
Franklin High. Or acknowledge that elevated monorail suits the
valley better and return the rail line to a route considered
earlier, down to the Duwamish past Boeing. That would mean fewer
riders, but less cost, faster Sea-Tac service, and a boon to SoDo
and Georgetown.
Paul Bay, the RTA's light-rail director, also talks
encouragingly of integration (or "combinations") of
rail and monorail, though he argues it's too late to start
rethinking rail lines and alignments already hashed out with
"a lot of analysis" and public process. A prime
prospect for monorail might be serving east-west corridors:
Ballard-Wallingford-University, Greenwood-Aurora-Northgate, West
Seattle-Duwamish-Beacon Hill-Rainier.
That's where monorail's superior hill-crossing capability
would fill the biggest deficit, thanks to the old glacial
carving; the ridgelines, and as a result the current highway and
bus systems, run north-south. UW professor/architect Doug
Kelbaugh has hammered at this point, and at the shortcomings of
Monorail Initiative's big "X" layout (see map). At the forum, he
noted that would mean sending the tracks way out on
little-travelled cul-de-sacs at the city's corridors. Wouldn't
concentric loops, combining nabe-to downtown and east-west
service, make more sense? Indeed, concedes Falkenbury: "It
would be ridiculous not to be flexible on this." The
important thing, he insists, is to get to the four main
quadrants, if notcorners, of the city; don't worry, West Seattle.
At least the initiative allows following the station
locations it specifies only "generally." Its
designation of an elevated system with "rubber tires"
may prove more limiting. Newer technologies combine monorail's
advantages with the speed and efficiency of steel-wheeled rail:
Vancouver's Skytrain, with linear-induction motors, and the
"Aerorail"
proposed by a Texas company, whose rails would be covered and
cushioned to dampen noise and ensure more hillclimbing traction.
But politics count more than technology at this stage. Licata
noted the importance of not just what shape the monorail scheme
takes, but who does the shaping: "We need people on the PDA
[the monorail-building public development authority specified in
the initiative) with substantial standing in the business and
financial community, so if they say it can goforward it
will." On that score, some of the appointments to an interim
committee that the City Council's Finance Committee suggested
last week look promising. Bill Stafford, the director of
the Trade Development Alliance, is a conduit to the business
biggies and a veteran City Hall operator. The Bullitt
Foundation's Emory Bundy brings hard-won knowledge of,
and skepticism about, wishful transit planning; as a member of
the RTA's Regional Outreach Committee, he last year delivered a
scathing critique of its light-rail projections and economics.
Even Falkenbury, who's "a little perplexed at having a
committee to decide who's on the [eventual PDA] committee,"
calls Bundy a "stellar choice."
Licata likewise says Bundy's selection is a boost to
credibility. As for funding the monorail PDA's operation, he
suggests, "They should look to the RTA - there's a large pot
of money there for looking at new technologies. "It seems to
me monorail could be a very positive thing for the RTA."
ERIC SCIGLIANO is News Editor of the SeattleWeekly,
1008 Western Avenue, Seattle, WA 98104 Ph: (206) 467-43775; fax:
(206) 467-4377
02/07/11