As a Sound Transit detractor, I need to go on the record about my opposition to Tim Eyman's latest initiative, I-776. Not that I wouldn't like to see Sound Transit fall into the sea, it's just that I-776 is a disingenuous way to kill Sound Transit.

The Eyman initiative, which would kill Sound Transit by preventing the agency from tapping its .3-percent Motor Vehicle Excise Tax taxing authority, is really a fight to implement Eyman's car-tab cap. Whatever you think of the $30 cap, an I-776 victory would kill Sound Transit without ever truly being a vote about Sound Transit itself.

No, I'd rather see a bona fide vote on Sound Transit itself--as advocated by a May 17 lawsuit that argues the proposed 14-mile line isn't the project voters approved in 1996. The line, for example, is seven miles shorter than the one voters signed off on, and the $2.9 billion price tag is about $500 million more than voters agreed to spend. Oh, and speaking of $500 million, the word in Washington, D.C., is that the critical half-a-billion federal grant--nearly 25 percent of the project's capital costs--won't be coming anytime soon. Or ever. This means Sound Transit wants to start building without the dough to build.

The real reason I'd like to see a Sound Transit vote, though, is because the monorail is on the ballot this fall, and despite ongoing cloying rhetoric about "transportation choices," Seattle needs to make one transportation choice.

Here's why: The two systems are both asking for billions of dollars ($2.9 billion for light rail's seven miles, and $1.2 billion for the monorail's 14 miles). And of course, as both systems seek to expand, there'll be billions of dollars in future funding requests. We cannot spend that kind of money. We need to choose.

Sound Transit folks like Mayor Greg Nickels disagree. They argue that the systems are complementary--the monorail working locally and Sound Transit working regionally. At a cursory hearing, this rhetoric about thinking "regionally" is appealing.

But think about it: Why should Seattleites pay for suburban commuters? If suburbanites want public transportation to get them into Seattle (and they should), then they ought to pay for it themselves. Heck, Seattle could even sell street rights to King County and use that dough for our monorail.

The real way to think regionally is to focus on making Seattle an invaluable metropolitan center of commerce and culture. The way to do that is to build one amazing public transportation system that draws people to our livable city.

And ultimately, the monorail would be an engine for density--encouraging people to live in and around the city, as opposed to a regional light-rail system, which would encourage people to sprawl outward.

I don't know about you, but I'm not interested in funding suburban sprawl. I'm interested in solving Seattle's traffic woes. The above-grade (a.k.a. above traffic) monorail will do that. The at-grade (a.k.a. stuck in traffic) Sound Transit system will not. Choose.

josh@thestranger.com