Just a month ago, when the Olympia legislature was getting ready to tackle transportation, some state reps were skeptical of monorail's chances. Legislators like Rep. Ed Murray (D-Seattle) feared the "Seattle-centric" monorail wouldn't survive, and felt the Elevated Transportation Company (ETC), the organization set up by voters to put together a monorail plan, waited too long to make its case. The ETC "needs to do a better job of educating legislators," Murray told The Stranger a few months ago. "The monorail is very unpopular outside of Seattle." Judging from the monorail's recent success in Olympia, the ETC listened to Murray's call for action.

In early January, the ETC hired three lobbyists to head up a monorail team at a cost of $45,000 for three months. Jim Kelley, former head of communications for Paul Allen's real estate company, Vulcan Northwest, is leading the team. The other two lobbyists are Ron Myers, a former legislator from Gig Harbor, and Jean Schlatter, a former legislative committee staffer. So far, the money seems to have been well spent.

Two regional transportation bills passed last week that feature specific monorail language. Senate Bill 6140, sponsored by Murray and Sen. Dan McDonald (R-Bellevue), and House Bill 2359, sponsored by Rep. Ruth Fisher (D-Tacoma), give Seattle voters the required state permission to tax themselves and build the monorail using the Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET) ["Gaining Speed," Pat Kearney, Jan 24]. The House bill, which many Seattle representatives favor over the Senate bill, goes a step further and allocates additional taxing authority if needed. (The Senate bill also identifies monorail as a legit transportation option, so that in the future it could get state funding.) Furthermore, there are two stand-alone monorail bills that are not dependent on the Senate and House bills. Basically, state legislators have monorail coming out their ears.

"Monorail has been successful down here because it's a simple message that just wasn't articulated to legislators before," says monorail lobbyist Kelley. "Now, it's pretty positively received." Despite the efforts of the lobbyists and some of Seattle's representatives, like Murray and Sen. Ken Jacobsen (D-Seattle), the monorail bills still face challenges.

All the bills, including the two stand-alones, need to pass the committee process, where details will be hashed out before the bills go back to the House and Senate for a final vote. Furthermore, the regional bills, 6140 and 2359, have a "null and void" clause that says if a bigger statewide transportation bill is not passed, everything in the regional bills, monorail included, is thrown out. "We can't be tied to the regional bills," says Kelley. "That's why we'll be pushing the stand-alones hard in the coming weeks, so monorail will survive even if the regional or state bills fail."