The monorail agency's interim executive director, John Haley, is a no-nonsense, barrel-chested 54-year-old Irish guy from the East Coast who speaks in a thick Boston accent. He pronounces the word "here," for example, as "hea-ya," "heart" as "haahht," and "fucked" as "fawked." And, as far as I can tell, Haley thinks Seattle is fawked.

Haley, who's been the commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Transportation, the deputy executive director of NYC's Port Authority, and the general manager of Boston's MBTA (all gigs where he oversaw multibillion dollar mass transit projects), is stumped by the fact that Seattle is poised to shelve a transit project like the monorail on Election Day.

"This is a huge 100-year asset for the city," he tells me the day after the agency released its new $3.9 billion-to-$4.9 billion finance plan (a 55-to-64-percent decrease from last June's $11 billion plan.) "It will increase property values, fuel smart, managed growth, and, obviously, address Seattle's transportation needs. And the city [government] doesn't even have to pay for it. What am I missing?"

Haley's question, which he asks me over a couple of drinks at a Capitol Hill pizza place with Queen blaring in the background, is directed squarely at Mayor Greg Nickels. Haley, who's been in town since August, tells me he senses a "risk averse" sensibility in Seattle (ya think?), and he sees Nickels's timidity as proof of the "industry scuttlebutt on Seattle"—"a place that can't build anything."

There are three things that traditionally stop mass transit projects from getting built: an ill-defined route, inability to purchase the land, and no finance plan. Haley says "lack of political will" from a Democratic mayor has never been a problem, though.

Indeed, while Haley's perplexed by the anti-monorail activists who show up at meetings and seethe about column width or the lack of personal space on the proposed trains, he believes "the city" (AKA Nickels), which bailed on the project last September, is the monorail's real problem.

The traditional deal killers are not at play: The monorail's route had already been defined and approved by the city council; land acquisition isn't an issue because the monorail was to be built above the streets on the public right of way; and the monorail has a dedicated funding source with the markets queued up to sell bonds. As the new finance plan—something Mayor Gridlock ignored—showed: The average car owner would pay a measly $10.83 per month. (The average U.S. car owner pays an estimated $857 a month just on gas, insurance, financing, and upkeep, according to AAA.)

And the gripe about the length of the bond schedule—up to 38 years—strikes Haley as ridiculous. "I've never heard of a project being judged by debt service," says Haley, who's been in the industry since 1975.

Ultimately, Haley challenges Nickels's assertion that the monorail project puts the city at risk. "What's the risk?" he asks repeatedly, pointing out that the city isn't even on the hook for the costs.

Team Nickels says the risk is clear: What if we give the project the go-ahead and it doesn't get built? What then? (So Nickels doesn't want to build the monorail because it might not get built?)

Haley asks a smarter question: "What's the second act?" he wants to know. "If you kill this project, what have you got?" He pauses. "I guess you've still got a traffic problem."

josh@thestranger.com