October 4, 1957, began a new
chapter in human history. The beep heard around the world marked the successful
launch of Sputnik I, the first manmade satellite. This day of celebration for the Soviet Union was a day
of outright fear for its greatest rival, the United States. After years of tension between the two nations,
this would kick off a fierce competition, a Space Race, that would push the limits of human
capability for the next two decades. Meanwhile, in Seattle, Washington,
civic leaders were struck with a new revelation. For the last two years they had
discussed plans for a World's Fair, but had struggled to come up with a theme
that would grab the public's attention. But now, with America firmly focused
on the stars, the answer was clear. With this in mind, the World's Fair plans were
reworked into the Century 21 Exposition. This would be a futuristic showcase of
American technology and space-age design. The most striking feature of the fair would be a stylish,
600-foot-tall structure called the Space Needle. When completed, this architectural icon would be
the tallest structure in the western United States. Equally ambitious would be
a working monorail system, which would carry people from the city
center to the site of the World's Fair. But this would be no amusement park ride. It would
be the first urban monorail in the United States. In its most basic form, the concept of
monorail dated back well over a century. Only a handful of examples had
ever been built around the world, and even fewer had found
any practical application. It wasn't until the 1950s that the technology really
started to show some potential for rapid transit. It's no coincidence that Walt Disney unveiled
his own monorail at Disneyland in 1959. At this moment in time, America's
fascination with the idea was at its peak. Transit planners around the country were serious
about building monorail systems on a large scale. And now, Seattle would be the first US city to
showcase this technology in a real-world setting. Multiple private firms submitted
bids to build the monorail, and in April of 1959, the contract was
awarded to the Lockheed Corporation. Using their experience in aircraft design, Lockheed engineers
designed sleek, fully automated monorail trains to carry passengers at 60 miles per hour. However, with the World's Fair
being delayed by a year, and with disagreements about who
should actually pay for the monorail, almost a full year passed without any progress. In February of 1960, the fair's organizers were
approached by the Alweg company of West Germany. Alweg had recently risen to fame from its
role in building the Disneyland Monorail. Now they were looking to bring this
technology to the US transit market. Alweg’s pitch to Seattle was simple: they could build
the one-mile monorail line at no cost to the city. if it didn't pay for itself over the course of the World's Fair,
Alweg would dismantle it at their own expense. Lockheed couldn't compete with this generous offer, and
in March of 1960, the contract was handed over to Alweg. Groundbreaking took place in April
of 1961, and over the next year, construction crews erected concrete
pillars and beamways along 5th Avenue. The two trains were constructed in Alweg’s facilities in
West Germany, and were shipped to Seattle in early 1962. By March, the system was fully operational, and
it was opened to the public for preview rides. When the fair finally opened on April 21, 1962, the
monorail had already carried nearly 200,000 riders. Its popularity lasted over the coming months,
and this didn't go unnoticed. Transit planners from around the world
flocked to Seattle to see the monorail in action, and took this valuable intel
back to their home cities. By the time the exposition ended six months later in October,
the monorail had carried well over 7 million passengers. Better yet, Alweg’s prediction had been correct.
The system had fully paid for itself, and then some. The technology had proven to be efficient, quiet,
cost-effective and popular with the general public. The world was at the dawn of a transit revolution, and
Seattle was surely the city that would lead the way. While mid-century Americans
may have seemed overly optimistic about a new mode of transit,
they had good reason for this. The last few decades had seen
a historic increase in car ownership and massive investments
in new roads and highways. Electric streetcar systems, which had once been
a staple of US cities, were now seen as antiquated. Most of these were torn out completely
and replaced with modern buses. Busses were praised for their versatility, as they could reach all corners of the city
without needing expensive infrastructure. But with more vehicles
hitting the road every day, traffic was becoming one of the
worst parts of everyday urban life. Buses were not only
contributing to the problem, but their passengers were getting stuck
in the same traffic as everyone else. This is why monorail was so appealing. These trains could glide above city streets, running at full
speed without being slowed down by the traffic below. With most cities now needing to rebuild
their transit infrastructure from scratch, monorail certainly seemed
like a viable option. A few months after the Seattle World's Fair,
transit expert Marmion Mills suggested that the monorail
should be expanded. By building new transit
lines across the region, The monorail could connect the city center with
outlying cities, as well as Seattle-Tacoma Airport. He suggested that a north-south line could
serve the most densely populated areas, running as far north as Mountlake Terrace
and as far south as Kent. This could be complemented by
branches running east and west, connecting areas like Redmond,
West Seattle and Renton. Mills was by no means the first person
to propose a monorail network for Seattle, but this serves as a good example of
the ideas being thrown around at the time. The problem was that monorail was still
an unproven concept at this scale. Seattle and many other cities were excited
to get building, but more often than not, these projects were deemed
too much of a financial risk. In fact, the only city investing in the idea
was on the other side of the globe. Officials in Tokyo, Japan had approved the
construction of an eight-mile monorail line, connecting the city with Haneda Airport. This was built to handle the influx of visitors that would
soon arrive in Tokyo for the 1964 Olympic Games. When it opened to the public in September, it was
the first urban monorail of the modern era. Back in the States, transit planners in San Francisco
were getting underway with a historic project of their own. While they had considered monorail early on, they
had now settled on a metro rail system called BART. This would have a more traditional
steel-rail design, but would be truly modern with high-capacity,
computer-controlled trains. The linchpin of the network would be a
3½-mile tunnel under the San Francisco Bay. By all accounts, this was one of the largest
infrastructure projects in the Bay Area's history. Back in Seattle, transit planners were
inspired by the BART concept, and began studying its feasibility
for the Puget Sound region. If they were going to spend a
fortune on a new transit system, this modern take on a traditional
design seemed like a safe bet. THe idea was championed by local
attorney and civic leader, Jim Ellis. As a true visionary, he pushed for major
investments into Seattle's infrastructure to keep up with the
increasing population. Under the banner name Forward Thrust,
Ellis campaigned for new parks, housing developments, a new sports stadium,
and of course, a rapid transit system. The Forward Thrust plan called for four
transit lines radiating from Downtown. Two of these would extend northward, running to
the neighborhoods of Crown Hill and Olympic Hills. Another route would head east across
Lake Washington and out to Bellevue, splitting out to the neighborhoods
of Bel-Red and Eastgate. The fourth line would run south,
reaching as far as Renton. Altogether, this network
would span about 47 miles. Much like BART, this would use a combination of subway
tunnels, ground-level tracks and elevated structures. Right out of the gate, politicians and
transit critics rallied against the project. Many of them feared that this would take
critical funding away from the city's freeways. As Senator Sam Guess argued: “Mass transit
planning for the Puget Sound area is a hoax.” “Rapid transit advocates cannot ignore
the fact that people want to drive and are willing to pay
for better highways,” “and no amount of elaborate planning
will persuade suburban dwellers to abandon outlying
modern shopping centers.” On the other side of the argument were politicians
like Mayor Dorm Braman and Governor Dan Evans. They believed that transit was an
essential part of the region's growth, and understood that it would supplement
the city's freeways, not replace them. When voters took to the polls in February of 1968,
they approved nearly all of the Forward Thrust proposals. Perhaps most notably, this included
the plans for a new sports stadium, which would be developed into
the Kingdome in the 1970s. Unfortunately, the rapid transit plan was
one of the only measures that failed, despite being the crux
of the whole campaign. Nonetheless, the Forward Thrust
promoters were confident that the plans could be reworked
and brought back to voters. Two years later, in May of 1970, the
rapid transit plan returned to the ballot. But with the city now facing an economic downturn,
voters were even less interested this second time around. The federal funding that would’ve been set aside for
the project was instead awarded to Atlanta, Georgia. The city would go on to build a metro transit system
of its own, called MARTA, which opened in 1979. The failure of the Forward Thrust plan
would haunt Seattle for years to come. As traffic continued to get worse, residents found
themselves with no good alternative to driving. But with transit being
a losing political issue, local officials were in no rush
to try it again anytime soon. In 1982, Seattle's neighbor to the north,
Vancouver, British Columbia, broke ground on a
transit system of its own. This was called the Vancouver SkyTrain, a fully automated
system of steel-wheeled trains on elevated tracks. In some ways this was like a
scaled-down version of BART, with the trains having less capacity
but running much more frequently. The SkyTrain opened in December of 1985, shortly
before Vancouver's own World's Fair, called Expo 86, Less than a year later, Seattle's
neighbor to the south, Portland, Oregon, opened its
own transit system called MAX. This used a new type of system called light rail, which
was essentially the modern evolution of the streetcar. While light rail was generally slower and had
less capacity, the tradeoff was its versatility. These trains could run along city
streets and navigate tight corridors, making them generally
less expensive to build. As one of the first cities to adopt light rail,
Portland gave Seattle a close look look at this new trend that was
quickly taking the world by storm. On the West Coast alone, light rail
systems opened in San Diego in 1981, Sacramento and San Jose in 1987,
and Los Angeles in 1990. Seattle now found itself
in a curious position. The city had once been touted as
a pioneer of 21st Century transit. Now with the 21st Century
finally on the horizon, Seattle was the only major West Coast
city without any rapid transit at all. Even as US cities had learned to reinvest in rapid transit,
monorail systems were conspicuously missing. In fact, the only substantial monorail system in the
country was the one serving Walt Disney World in Florida. This had launched with the opening
of the Magic Kingdom in 1971, and had more than doubled in length
with the opening of EPCOT in 1982. While this was obviously not
a real-world urban setting, its ridership was on par with many other
transit systems around the country. Throughout the early 90s,
monorail systems were considered for places like Houston, Texas,
Orange County, California, and Honolulu, Hawaii. But time and time again, transit planners would
eventually drop these ideas in favor of something else. Projects like these would soon
be immortalized by The Simpsons, which aired the famous episode,
“Marge vs. the Monorail,” in 1993. This poked fun at the idea of a city
getting swept off its feet by monorail, only to realize that the
whole thing was a hoax. While this would become one of the most
beloved episodes in the show's history, it would also reinforce the idea that
monorail shouldn't be taken seriously. Meanwhile, Seattle officials were finally getting
serious about building a rapid transit system. The newly formed Regional
Transit Authority, or RTA, would lead the efforts to build a light
rail system across the Puget Sound region. Light rail was chosen because it had proven
successful in many other cities over the last decade. But building light rail here
would be no easy task. Between the hilly terrain
and numerous waterways, this large scale project could
easily cost several billion dollars. For this reason, there were widespread concerns
that the RTA had made this choice prematurely. Many people had serious doubts that light
rail was really the best solution for Seattle. This was certainly true for
local resident Dick Falkenbury. As a professional driver of taxi cabs and tour busses,
he had an intimate knowledge of Seattle's street network. Traffic was already unbearable,
and he feared that running light rail trains through the streets
would only make things worse. As it turned out, the answer
was over his head — literally. The original Seattle monorail, now over
30 years old, was still in daily operation. Nowadays, it carried people to the Seattle
Center, the former site of the World's Fair which had been redeveloped
into a cultural hub for the city. Despite only running a short distance, the monorail was still attracting
more than 2 million riders a year. Dick Falkenbury believed that if new
monorail lines were built from Downtown to the outer reaches of the city,
this could be massively successful. It would be less expensive than light rail,
easier to build over challenging terrain, and would be completely
unaffected by road traffic. I didn't have a large epiphany.
Frankly I was looking around for an initiative because it's the cheapest
fun you can have in politics. The regional council came up with light rail
and I instinctively knew that was a bad idea. It's a bad idea because
it mixes with traffic. So then the next obvious thing is,
well what doesn’t mix with traffic? Subways, too expensive.
And monorails, which we had. So, that's sort of how I
came to the monorail. On July 7, 1994, Dick Falkenbury
announced his ballot petition, which called for a monorail system
to be built across the city. According to his plan, a western
route would start in Broadview, and work its way down through
Ballard, Fremont and Downtown. Then it would pass through SoDo and cut
over to West Seattle, ending in Fauntleroy. An eastern route would start in Rainier Beach
and work its way up through the Rainier Valley. This would pass through
Downtown as well, and then head up through the University
District before ending in Lake City. Altogether, this X-shaped network
would span about 35 miles, serving some of the most densely
populated areas of the city. Falkenbury estimated that this
could be built for about $1.3 billion. But this campaign would be
an uphill battle from the start. The petition needed 18,000
signatures to get on the ballot, and Falkenbury had neither the money
nor the volunteers to make it happen. In September of 1994, while collecting
signatures at the Bumbershoot music festival, he met a local poet and
activist named Grant Cogswell. Cogswell was fascinated with the monorail
idea and soon joined the campaign. However, with the deadline approaching soon after,
the petition failed to get the necessary signatures. Meanwhile, in March of 1995, the RTA finally
brought a comprehensive transit plan to voters. Along with a new commuter rail
service and express bus routes, the plan called for a 70-mile light rail system
connecting Seattle, Lynnwood, Bellevue and Tacoma. The entire package would
cost about $6.7 billion. This was a hard pill for voters to swallow,
especially with lingering doubts about light rail. In the end, this plan
was rejected at the polls, and the RTA was forced to go back and
come up with something more palatable. In the meantime, Dick Falkenbury
kicked off a second attempt of his own. In April of 1996, he filed a new
ballot petition to build the monorail. The plan was the same, but this time around he had Grant
Cogswell’s support and creative ideas to get more signatures. And we had hardly any
money in those campaigns. It was called a stealth campaign. We only spent
$1,200 and we didn't actually do anything with it. And then I just lucked into
about twelve sheets of plywood. And so we did a very simple map of the city showing
where we would go with black electrical tape, and said, “Extend the monorail!”
And we put petitions on there. And that's how we got
almost all of our signatures. As word spread across the city,
support for the monorail grew stronger. There was something exciting about a
grassroots movement that was a little offbeat, an idea that had come from the people
rather than bureaucrats behind closed doors. At the end of the summer, the campaign
finally got the 18,000 signatures. The monorail initiative would be put
forth to voters in November of 1997. But first the RTA would have its
second attempt in November of 1996. This revised plan significantly
reduced the light rail line, which would now run 24 miles from the
University District to Sea-Tac Airport. A separate line would run about a mile
and a half within the city of Tacoma. The total cost, including other rail
and bus projects, was $3.9 billion. This one was a winner, and after
three decades of failed attempts, Seattle voters finally approved their
first comprehensive transit plan. There were still countless details
to iron out over the coming years, but the first major hurdle
had been crossed In the following summer of 1997, the RTA rebranded
itself under the new name of Sound Transit. Meanwhile, with the Monorail initiative now slated for
the November election, city officials were annoyed. They saw the monorail
as a silly distraction that would confuse voters and
undermine the work of Sound Transit. Transit officials criticized
the idea as well, believing that monorail was too
expensive and simply impractical. As Sound Transit board member
Greg Nickels told the press: “People like the monorail. They like
children and puppies and the monorail.” “But there are significant technical problems,
which is why there aren't more of them.” But while officials brushed
off the campaign, they didn't realize just how popular
it had become with the general public. On November 4, 1997, the monorail plan
was approved by over 52% of voters. Politicians were shocked, as they fully
expected the initiative to die at the ballot box. Instead, this surprise victory had turned
the city's political scene on its head. As the Seattle Times described it: “More than the usual head-scratching
is going on after last week's election.” “Civic leaders, political operatives, journalists
and even voters seem bemused.” “Stunned Local officials are scrambling to figure out
what to do about passage of the monorail initiative.” After years of hard work, the
dreamers had finally succeeded. Dick Falkenbury was considered either a
hero or a pest, depending on who you asked. And Seattle itself had finally found the forward
thrust It was missing for all those years. After decades, without any
rapid transit projects in the works, the city had now approved
two of them back to back. With the monorail plan
now approved by voters, the first order of business was to create
a public agency to manage the project. The Elevated Transportation
Company, or ETC, was established a few months
later in February of 1998. Its 12 board members were
appointed by Mayor Paul Schell, Governor Gary Locke, and
City Council President Sue Donaldson. However, with most city officials being
against the monorail, there was a real fear that they would fill the board with critics who
would shut down the project from the inside. Dick Falkenbury had assumed that
his role with the project was over, but it wasn't long before
he was roped back in. And then I had a sit-down
with a political operative. And he said, “Dick, you
have to be on the board.” “Because if you're not on the board,
they're gonna say the fix is in.” There were a number of people
who were on the board to kill it. And if I had not
attended every meeting, somebody would’ve raised their hand
and said, “This is going nowhere.” “I make a motion to shut it down.” One of the ETC’s first tasks was
to answer a burning question: How would Seattle pay for the
world's largest monorail system? As it turned out, many of their answers
would be found in Las Vegas. A few years earlier in 1995, a
one-mile monorail line had opened between the MGM Grand
and Bally's resorts. While this was little more
than a tourist attraction, the city was now discussing plans to
expand it into a proper transit system. Based on the costs of the Vegas Monorail,
the ETC figured that the Seattle system could be built for about
$35–$50 million per mile. When comparing this to a light rail system built at
ground level, monorail was about 40% more expensive. But realistically, most of the Seattle light rail line
would need to be built above or below ground. In these cases, monorail
had the upper hand, being around 40–60% cheaper
depending on the situation. What's more, the Vegas project showed that
monorail could be enticing to private investors. It had been built entirely
with private capital, and the future expansion was planned to
have a mix of private and public funding. The ETC decided that this would be the
best path forward for Seattle as well. In the spring of 1999,
numerous private firms showed interest in the monorail project,
but two stood out among the rest. One of these was Hitachi,
a Japanese conglomerate that was the world leader
in urban monorail systems. Hitachi had built the Tokyo
Haneda line back in the 1960s. In more recent years, they had
built three more systems in Kitakyushu, Osaka and western Tokyo,
with a fourth one underway in Okinawa. The other major player was
Canadian firm Bombardier. While they had less experience
in monorail specifically, they had a greater presence in the
North American rail and transit market. Bombardier had built the new fleet
for the Walt Disney World Monorail in the late 1980s and early 90s. And in the near future, they would be selected
to build the new fleet for Las Vegas as well. But while many companies showed
interest in the Seattle project, they were concerned about the
lack of support from city politicians. As consultant Andrew Jakes explained: “The problem is that there is no political
consensus in Seattle, and that is dangerous.” “You could spend hundreds of
thousands of dollars and get nowhere.” “I need to feel that something like this
would be politically welcome in Seattle.” “Right now, I don't have that feeling.” At the very least, the uncertainties
of the monorail seemed tame compared to what was now
going on with Sound Transit. In the summer of 1999, the plans
for light rail hit a major snag. Because of the tough geography of Capitol
Hill and the Lake Washington Ship Canal, the northern section of the line would
have to run completely underground. Making matters worse, the soil
conditions were so poor that the engineers would have
to bore through solid mud. All of this was pushing the project
hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. Meanwhile, the ETC was starting to
face a financial problem of its own. With no ongoing source of income, they barely
had enough money to keep the lights on, let alone to perform the engineering
studies for the monorail. Despite their attempts
to get more funding, this was refused by Mayor Paul
Schell and the City Council. Without this money, the monorail
project would be forced to shut down, and city officials were counting on it. After months of legal head-butting
between the two sides, King County Superior Court gave
the City Council an ultimatum: Either give the ETC the funding it needs,
or put the agency out of its misery. This was all the City
Council needed to hear, and in the summer of 2000,
they officially disbanded the ETC. With the monorail project now dead in the
water, supporters sprung back into action. Right away, they drafted a new ballot
petition to bring the issue back to voters. If approved, the ETC
would be fully reinstated, but this time with an adequate
budget to continue its work. These campaign efforts, under
the name “Rise Above It All,” were led by activist Peter Sherwin, attorney
Cleve Stockmeyer, and of course, Dick Falkenbury. On November 7, 2000, the monorail project
was approved by over 56% of voters. This sent a clear
message to city officials. The public was not only still interested in the
project, but their support was stronger than ever. As Peter Sherwin told the press: “People were so angered by the arrogance of the city
government saying we didn't know what we had voted for.” “That was one of the
reasons we worked so hard and did everything we could
to get on the November ballot.” “The whole point of this initiative is to get the [financial]
numbers and stop all the endless speculation.” After two grueling years of pulling
teeth with the city government, the newly restored ETC now had the funding
it needed to really get some work done. While the monorail project was riding high, Sound
Transit was reaching a new low in public confidence. Due to the challenges of
building a light rail tunnel, The project was now more than a billion dollars
over budget, and three years behind schedule. The public was outraged, and there were growing
demands to cancel the project altogether. Because of this, Sound Transit spent the next
year figuring out how to salvage the project. Since tunneling north was too expensive, they decided to drop this plan for now
and save it for a second phase later on. Instead, they would focus on building the
southern leg of the line to Sea-Tac Airport. Not to be forgotten, there were still plans
to build a light rail line in Tacoma as well. The smaller project
had its own challenges, but it managed to avoid the outright
scandal of its larger counterpart. Groundbreaking for the Tacoma
line took place in October of 2000, marking a first tangible step
forward for light rail in the region. Meanwhile, with the ETC now fully
revived and properly funded, they could develop a comprehensive
plan for the monorail. Using Dick Falkenbury's original
map as a starting point, they decided that an eastern route
was not the best place to start. This would have too much
overlap with the light rail project, and they didn't want to step
on Sound Transit's toes. Instead, they looked to the
neighborhoods on the west side. These areas had been left out
of the light rail plans altogether, but had more than enough population
to support a rapid transit line. Throughout 2001, the ETC hosted a series of
meetings and urban design workshops for the public. Seattle citizens would help guide the
decisions on where stations should be built, and which specific route the monorail
should take through their neighborhoods. In October, members of the
ETC board traveled to Japan to visit several monorail
systems around the country. During this trip, they met with
Japanese transit operators to learn how these systems were integrated
into the dense urban landscape. The first and most important
point I think that we would stress is that we learned that in fact
monorails can and do work currently in an urban transportation
system setting in Japan, and in fact, they have done so
for a substantial period of time. In the city of Tokyo there's
about ten miles of monorail, and 130,000 people riding that
monorail system every day. So we know that it's practical,
we know that it's functional, and we know that it’s moving people, and
that it's a possibility right here in our own city. In the spring of 2002, ETC board members
made a similar trip to Las Vegas. The monorail here was now
being expanded to four miles, and this gave the ETC a chance
to study its construction. Closer to home, they also visited
the SkyTrain in Vancouver, BC. Here, they learned about the logistics
of a fully automated transit system, which they were planning to implement
for the Seattle monorail as well. The Vegas Monorail and
Vancouver SkyTrain were both built under a type of contract called
Design, Build, Operate, Maintain, or DBOM. Essentially, this meant that a private
contractor would agree to a fixed cost upfront. Since they were personally responsible
for any unexpected costs, it was in their best interest to keep the
project on budget and on schedule. This was different from most other
public infrastructure projects, which were prone to major
delays and cost overruns. With Sound Transit being
the obvious example here, the ETC agreed that a DBOM contract would
help them avoid these same mistakes. When we went up and met with the folks
who built the SkyTrain in Vancouver, BC, they were very strong advocates
for the design-build system because it protects the
taxpayer against cost overruns. Because a design-build firm will
come in and guarantee a price, guarantee a timeline, and then
they will deliver the project, so the risk shifts from the taxpayer
to the design-build company. And therefore, the taxpayer knows that they
are going to get the system that they asked for. In August of 2002, the ETC released their comprehensive
report, called the Seattle Popular Monorail Plan. For the first time, this gave a detailed
look into several aspects of the project, including where the monorail would
run and how it would be financed. If approved by voters in November, this would lay
the groundwork for the city's first monorail line. In terms of where exactly the line would run,
the ETC's plans were as follows: On the north end, the monorail would start
in Ballard, running south along 15th Avenue. It would cross the ship canal on a new
bridge and continue down through Interbay. Turning east, it would either run around the
Seattle Center or through the middle of it, serving attractions like the Key Arena,
Space Needle and Memorial Stadium. From here the line would run along 5th and 2nd
Avenues, making several stops through Downtown, including Pike Place Market
and King Street Station. Then it would head down through SoDo, serving
Safeco Field and the Starbucks headquarters. From here it would turn west to
cross the Duwamish Waterway, running over the median
of the West Seattle Bridge. Reaching West Seattle, it would make its final approach
along California Avenue, ending at Morgan Junction. This 14-mile route, which would
soon be named the Green Line, would cost about $1.7 billion. If all went well, the line would
be open to the public in 2007. Looking farther into the future,
more transit lines could be built to create a monorail
network across the city. These would be studied at a later time, but the Green Line would serve as
a gateway to these future projects. As part of the new plan, the line's construction
would be funded by a motor vehicle excise tax. As the report explained: “...cars have contributed to Seattle's traffic congestion
problem, and therefore should be part of the solution.” “...the [Motor Vehicle Excise Tax] is a progressive tax,
costing more for people who own more expensive cars, and is environmentally progressive, providing
an incentive for people to own fewer cars.” Greg Nickels, who had previously served on the
Sound Transit board, was now the mayor of Seattle. While he had been critical of
the monorail from the beginning, he was impressed with the ETC's work. As he told the press: “This is terrific news. It validates the
hard work done by the monorail’s board and should strengthen public confidence
that we're moving in the right direction.” “It certainly supports my position
on the monorail: let’s build it.” With growing support from
the mayor and the City Council, it seemed that things were finally
looking up for the monorail project. Even those who were previously against
the idea were starting to support it. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote: “This newspaper has twice
opposed monorail measures.” “The measure before voters Nov. 5
is no longer pie-in-the-sky and what-ifs.” “This time, monorail proponents
have offered a solid plan to carry out the passion that has been
the charm of this project all along.” Following the election on November 5, 2002,
the monorail was once again victorious, but by a margin of just 877 votes. The press called it one of the closest
elections in the city's history. On the one hand, Seattle's taxpayers had
approved the monorail’s construction, and had agreed to tax
themselves to pay for it. But this razor-thin victory was a reminder that
there was still a long and difficult road ahead. As City Councilman Nick Licata put it: “There's a great burden on the city
government to make this project work.” “If we blow it, we probably
won't get re-elected.” “I think it's critical to ask hard questions, to make sure
they present a solid plan to [meet] neighborhood needs.” “The monorail is not a done deal as far as a
completed project. It's got a long way to go.” As part of the new plan approved by voters,
the ETC was replaced with a new agency called the Seattle Popular
Monorail Authority. The agency and the project as a whole were
referred to as the Seattle Monorail Project, or SMP. Joel Horn, who had served among the project staff
for about a year, was promoted to Executive Director. Tom Weeks, who had been the ETC's
Board Chairman for over a year as well, would continue this role with the SMP. Dick Falkenbury, who also returned
to the board of directors, was concerned about
this change in leadership. Over the last year, he had seen an increasing
amount of secrecy in the organization. It was getting to a point where he
and the other board members were being shut out of the
project almost entirely. Falkenbury butted heads with Horn and Weeks,
urging for more transparency in the organization. A couple weeks later, there’s a very small meeting,
a couple of engineers, one staff person. They're talking about something,
I can't even remember what it is. Some technical thing about
building the monorail. So I just went in, sat down, didn’t ask any
questions or anything, got up and walked out. And so they came to me,
Horn and Weeks, and said, “Well no, you can't do that.
You can't be sitting in the meetings.” Falkenbury was fed up
with this secretive attitude, and in February of 2003, he resigned
from the Seattle Monorail Project. If the agency's own board members
weren't allowed to know what was going on, he knew this didn't bode
well for the future of the project. Meanwhile, as the route of the
Green Line was being finalized, there were major concerns
about the Seattle Center. Many people felt that running a monorail through
here would detract from the beauty of the space. They wanted to keep the transit line
around the edges of the property instead. Others argued that building directly through
here was more financially responsible, as it would save millions of
dollars in construction costs. Another issue was that the Green Line would
overlap with the route of the historic monorail. The tentative plan was to demolish the
old system to make way for the new one. But many people were appalled at the idea
of removing this piece of Seattle's history. To settle the debate, the city designated the
old monorail trains as a historic landmark. The SMP would be allowed to demolish the
old tracks to make way for the Green Line, but the historic trains would be preserved. As these debates waged on through the summer
of 2003, the SMP received some troubling news. The vehicle excise tax was bringing in about a
third less revenue than they had expected. This was their only source of funding for the project,
so a shortfall like this could have serious consequences. Making matters worse, the board of directors
had been given no warning about this. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer wrote: “Some monorail board members complained that they had
to learn the news from outside sources and media reports.” “[Joel] Horn and Board Chairman Tom Weeks
are convinced that the revenue problem is not only manageable, but is
also potentially short-lived.” “Time will tell. Most importantly,
the board must be able to trust that staff is giving them
the news — good or bad.” “Lost revenue can be adjusted for.
Lost trust cannot.” Not great news that you have less revenues
than you expected. About a third less. What's gonna have to be cut
in this project to still do it? We've still committed to
open the system in 2007, and to build the full 14 miles from
Morgan Junction through Downtown, serving the stadiums, Seattle Center,
and on out to 85th and Ballard. So the full 14 miles will be built. What we've challenged our engineers and our
architects to do, is find economies in the system to bring this at the low
end of our budget range. I mean, are those economies enough
to make up a third, a third shortfall? Well, we think so. We're working
to do the final costing right now, and it will depend on some key decisions
that the board will have to make in discussions with the public
over the next few months. With the financial concerns mounting, the
agency started looking for ways to cut costs. First and foremost, they decided to slim down
portions of the Green Line to a single track. Generally speaking, having two tracks allows
for trains to run freely in both directions. A single track is cheaper to build, but it forces trains
to take turns when traveling in opposite directions. This has serious impacts on
travel times and overall capacity. When these concerns were
brought up to Joel Horn, he suggested that commuters could avoid
taking the monorail during rush hour, or perhaps they could
just take the bus. Statements like these seemed
to completely miss the point of why they were building a rapid
transit system in the first place. To further cut costs, the SMP planned
to eliminate the station at Safeco Field. This was heavily criticized by the Seattle Mariners
and baseball fans across the city. The Mariners’ legal team wrote a
scathing letter to the SMP, which read: “Based on the monorail’s own
ridership estimates for baseball fans, any reduction in ridership casts serious
doubts on the project's financial viability.” “The additional loss of fare box revenue
due to the loss of ballpark ridership will only exacerbate the
monorail’s financial problems.” In response to the backlash, the SMP quietly
added the Safeco Field station back to the map. Ironically, while the monorail project
was becoming more controversial, Sound Transit was finally
trending in the opposite direction. In August of 2003, the Tacoma Link
light rail line was opened to the public. Less than three months later,
construction would begin on the Central Link between
Downtown Seattle and Sea-Tac Airport. While Sound Transit would continue to face
its own political tensions in the coming years, they were slowly but surely
rebuilding the public's trust. Meanwhile, the SMP was facing
a new kind of opposition. A citizens’ group called Monorail Recall
announced a new ballot initiative, which would ban the SMP from
building over public streets. If approved by voters, this would
effectively kill the monorail project. As the Seattle Weekly wrote:
“It's time to stop the People's Boondoggle.” “Big transportation projects like
the monorail usually start out well, and then devils emerge
from the details.” “The system as planned now is less good than
the one drawn on the slate of our imaginations; as it progresses, it will become more
problematic and more expensive.” In the summer of 2004, the SMP officially opened
up the bidding process to private contractors. By now, it was widely understood that Hitachi and
Bombardier were the only qualified contenders. Generally speaking, they came to the table
with two different design philosophies. Hitachi specialized in trains where the floor
sat completely above the drive wheels. This offered greater capacity and allowed
passengers to walk freely throughout the train. The tradeoff was that these vehicles were quite large,
and many people didn't like their bulky design. Bombardier offered trains
with a low floor design, allowing them to be smaller
and more streamlined. The compromise was that each car
had to be its own isolated unit. This reduced the overall capacity and forced
passengers to stay within a single cabin. As the two companies prepared to submit their
bids, it didn't take long for problems to arise. Bombardier’s two main partners soon
dismissed themselves from the project. This was in large part because of issues
they were dealing with in Las Vegas. Engineering challenges had delayed the
Vegas Monorail’s opening by six months. Soon after opening, it would
have to be shut down again after pieces were literally
falling off the trains. With the loss of their major partners, Bombardier announced that they were pulling out
of the running for the Seattle Monorail Project. This would leave Hitachi as the only bidder,
which was problematic in its own right. As City Councilman Richard Conlin explained:
“A single bidder has an enormous opportunity to manipulate the process and dictate
their own terms and conditions.” “It’s pretty hard to do a competitive process
when you only have one competitor.” Hitachi submitted its bid soon after, though the SMP would keep the details confidential
while they worked out a final agreement. In the meantime, the Monorail Recall
campaign was only gaining more traction. With the prospect of being asked
yet again to keep the monorail going. voters were starting to feel fatigued. As the Seattle Weekly wrote: “So how many times are we gonna
vote on this thing anyway?” “We need to stop judging the monorail by the degree
to which it does or doesn’t make us feel good, and treat it like any other
major civic project.” “And that means not making it a beach ball to
be bounced back and forth at the ballot box.” On November 2, 2004, the
ballot box was opened once again. With only 37% of voters supporting the recall,
the monorail would live to fight another day. Despite the increasing skepticism, most Seattle
residents still felt that the project was worth pursuing. And with the construction
contract being finalized soon, it was looking like this years-long
dream would finally become a reality. When the SMP entered negotiations
with Hitachi in the fall of 2004, they expected to have an
agreement within a few weeks. But by the summer of 2005, there was still
no word about how things were progressing. The SMP had been virtually
silent for nine months, and the press could only speculate
about what exactly was going on. According to inside sources, Joel Horn
had micromanaged the project so much that it was bloated with unnecessary costs. Others reported that Hitachi's bid was running
hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. As the SMP continued to dodge questions,
the public's patience was wearing thin. They add, “The city has a duty to protect the
public from a project that may be doomed.” Again, this is Seattle Times
editorial opinion. “Let's get going. Let's
open the tent of secrecy so the public can get a sense as to whether
this behemoth project is real or not.” That's pretty strong criticism
from a newspaper that begrudgingly gave some support,
has given support in the past. When you get to the other part
about the “tent of secrecy,” you know, these aren't secret negotiations.
Everyone knows they're going on. It's not secret, it’s private.
And that’s very, very different. And it's difficult for us because we've
been so open about what we've been doing. We think we set new examples
of transparency and openness. And then all of a sudden, we
go into private negotiations. The SNP finally broke their silence in June,
announcing that they had reached an agreement. Hitachi and its partners would sign a 15-year
contract to build and operate the Green Line. Rather than building 19 stations as originally planned,
they reduced this to 16 in order to cut costs. While the line had been planned to open in 2007,
it was now being pushed back three years to 2010. What's more, the project would
no longer cost $1.7 billion. It would now be $2.1 billion, about 20% higher
than voters had originally approved. These changes only brought
more criticism to the project, but at this point it looked like
things were finally moving forward. Before the contract could be signed, it would have
to pass a legal review by the State of Washington. State Auditor Brian Sonntag began looking through the
SMP's finances to make sure everything was in order. But almost immediately, he found an
overwhelming number of red flags. In a letter to the agency and
Mayor Greg Nickels, he wrote: “[I need] to share our concerns and those of others
about the viability of the Seattle Monorail Project.” “[Financial analysts] are deeply concerned
about overly optimistic revenue projections, about what they believe
has been a lack of openness, and about the potential effect
of the project on taxpayers...” As it turned out, these concerns
were well-founded. About a week later, news came out that
would shake the monorail project to its core. Hidden in the fine print was the
true long-term cost of the project. It would not be $1.7 billion,
as voters had originally approved. It would not even be $2.1 billion,
as recently announced. The long term cost of the project... would be a staggering $11.4 billion. Everyone on both sides of the
argument was floored by this figure. How on earth did the project
get so far off track? To some extent this
was a little misleading, as all public works projects actually
cost more than their sticker price. When considering the interest payments
over time, it would’ve been normal for the project to cost maybe twice the
figure that most people were discussing. But as it stood now, the monorail was going to
cost more than five times the advertised amount. The reason for this ultimately
came back to the motor vehicle tax. Since it wasn't bringing in enough
money to pay for the Green Line, The SMP had decided to use high-interest
bonds to make up the difference. Rather than paying off the project
in 25 years, as originally planned, taxpayers would be paying for the
monorail for upwards of 50 years. This is what inflated the long-term
cost to absurd proportions. Perhaps the biggest issue of all was that the board
of directors had been kept in the dark this whole time. If they had been involved
in the negotiations, they almost certainly could’ve
prevented things from getting this bad. As board member
Sue Secker told the press: “...what happened in the organization
early on [...] was a kind of culture of control.” “It was almost a fear of the public and the media, and
because of that, a carefulness even with the board.” “I mean, the first time I knew about
[the $11 billion cost], I read about it in the paper.” “Don't you think that's interesting?
And I'm the finance chair.” “I don't think it was intentional. I think
it was part of this rush to get it done.” “The pressure of negotiating
for all these months.” “But frankly, I think it was their job to
[keep us informed], especially when I kept asking.” With the ship clearly sinking, Joel Horn and Tom Weeks
resigned from the monorail project on July 4. The SMP now had two options: either scale back
the project, or find new sources of funding. Either way, this would have
to be approved by voters. But at this point, even the project’s supporters
knew it wouldn't survive another round at the polls. I think there are a couple more steps that they
need to take to restore public confidence before the project has a realistic
chance of moving forward. The first is, much like Sound Transit,
they need to bring new eyes in. They need to bring in some experts
to take a look at the plan, the finances, and give them sort of a...
either a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, some suggestions on what
needs to be changed. Would another vote
win this November? Well, I think if this board is able to
restore public confidence, that's the key. If they're able to do that, the need for
transportation improvements hasn't gone away. We still need to have
light rail and monorail in order to move people effectively
in and out of the core of the city. So I think that if they're able to restore
that confidence, they can make the case. In August, Mayor Nickels gave
the agency an ultimatum: If they didn't present a
new plan within a month, he would cut off their legal rights
to build in the city of Seattle. By comparison, when Sound Transit's
light rail project had come to the brink of death, they were given years
to sort out the issues. Giving the monorail project only
a few weeks was completely unrealistic, to the point where many people
saw this as intentional sabotage. Sound Transit got rid of their executive director,
brought in another person, and they said, “Give us a couple of years, and we’ll come back
with a better plan for much less money.” And so they survived. That's exactly
what the monorail should’ve done. With no other options left, the SMP
wrote up a new ballot proposition. Rather than building the
whole 14-mile Green Line, they would shorten it to about ten miles,
running from Interbay to West Seattle. This would retain the
original cost of $1.7 billion. The long term cost would be a
much more reasonable $3.9 billion. After everything that had happened,
this was as good as it was going to get. When the polls opened on November 8, 2005,
the results were predictable. Public support for the project
had dropped to a mere 35%. This was the end of the line,
plain and simple. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer put it: “The monorail backers were so intoxicatingly in
love with a beautiful but fatally flawed dream.” “Voters jerked them back to reality.” After enduring five votes over the last
eight years, the project's luck had run out. Seattle had finally rejected the monorail. On November 26, 2005, less than
three weeks after the final election, the Seattle Center Monorail
had a major accident. Due to an operator error, the two trains
were wedged alongside each other in a spot that could only
fit one train at a time. This was not the first accident
that the system had endured, but it was the first time in over 40 years that
both trains were put out of commission at once. Much like the grassroots movement
that had captivated the city for years, the monorail now found itself
stuck with nowhere to go. The timing of this was
nothing if not poetic. Meanwhile, the SMP was busy with one final task:
to shut down its own operations. Offices were closed, staff were terminated,
and real estate was sold off. It would ultimately take two years
to tie up all the loose ends. When the dust finally settled, the
city's residents had paid $125 million for a transit system that
would never be built. You might say that the Seattle
Monorail Project was killed by hubris, that its promoters were blinded by their own
arrogance and chose to ignore the issues. You might say it was
killed by sabotage, that the city government did everything
in its power to quash the will of the people. But more than anything, this seems to
be a case of death by a thousand cuts. It was a multitude of political,
financial and managerial issues that turned the city's dream
into something of a nightmare. In 2009, Sound Transit finally opened its
Central Link light rail line Downtown and Sea-Tac. In the years since, light rail service
across the region has slowly expanded, and more extensions
are currently underway. Looking ahead to the
next few decades, Sound Transit has ambitious plans to
expand the light rail network even further. Perhaps most interestingly, the system may
eventually reach Ballard and West Seattle. If this comes to fruition, these neighborhoods
will finally get their rapid transit, some 30 to 40 years after the monorail
Green Line would’ve started running. The original Seattle Center Monorail
is still operating to this day, more than 60 years after it first opened. While it was designed quite literally
as a vision of the future, It now serves as a fascinating
view into the past. But if the past can teach us anything,
it's that Seattle will always have new dreamers to rekindle that promise of the future. In the words of Seattle Times
reporter Jack Broom: “...the monorail carries an
undeniable emotional potency, not because it's part of the way the world views Seattle,
but because it's part of the way we view Seattle.” “It would have been easier to recall thousands of LIFE
magazines and airbrush the monorail off the cover than to remove it from
our collective heart.”
