Visual Art
Jun 13, 2022 at 10:06 am
In the ’90s, Seattleites Tried to Expand the Monorail—and Failed
Comments
Please wait...
Comments are closed.
Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.
More In Visual Art
Popular Articles
is a proud member of the
media network
media network
All contents © Index Newspapers LLC
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
Yes, I voted for the Monorail- and all I have is a Monorail coffee cup to show for it!
As quirky as the concept was, it would have been a Godsend to Ballard and West Seattle.
I’m very happy with the light rail system we do have. It makes sense to utilize below grade transportation when land is at a premium, and much easier on noise/community impacts, and space the tracks take up on the street. So much of the viaduct replacement was paid by the state, that is not the same pot of money to build housing. Surprised folks still holding a grudge on a failed idea from 2+ decades ago.
We need more water taxis.
Yep. Well done, I always love these little comics even when they infuriate me.
I doubt it would have obviated the need for the SR 99 tunnel. Quite a bit of that capacity is needed for commercial vehicles moving along the route. Not something you want to clog downtown surface streets with.
But it's main failing (compared to ST light rail) is that it didn't provide a tax revenue shell game that the local pols could use. Never mind that it could actually move people around. That's way down the list of priorities for its proponents.
I do believe this is an obligatory inclusion w/ any monorail related post
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDOI0cq6GZM
@10: That's a poor argument. You could just replace the bus..monorail..bus trip with bus..light rail..bus. Or bus..bus..bus.....
It's a good argument against mass public transit in general. Because it's difficult to compete with a trip consisting of 'car'. Or in the event of a night of bar-hopping, 'taxi'.
It also calls into question the need to utilize rail/bus transportation to do Safeway shopping. Walk to the corner store. Of course, as big cities have discovered, without efficient longer distance transportation to support big grocery stores (Whole Foods, Metropolitan Market, etc.), food stores devolve into corner bodegas with chips, malt liquor and cigarettes. Food deserts, we call them.
Nice comic, except I think the ending is silly. People who are willing to take the monorail take the bus right now. I sometimes wonder if The Stranger staff ignores the most used form of transit in the city while they pine away for light rail to Fife (oh yeah, that's really gonna change things).
Anyway, as a big supporter of the monorail proposal, I've come to the conclusion that it would never have been built. It failed because they screwed up the tax estimates (showing what sort of amateurs were running the show). But even if they got that right, building an actual monorail would have been a lot more expensive than what they planned. It is also a fairly poor route, and was chosen specifically to not integrate with the light rail. (Don't worry, Sound Transit is quite capable of not integrating various lines by themselves, thank you very much).
The big problem is West Seattle. A good subway has many stops, each of which is popular. It is the combination of trips that makes the system popular, and allows it to compete with faster long distance travel (like a freeway). For example, consider someone in Northgate who used to take the 41 to work downtown. They used to be picked up a few blocks from the freeway, and then were quickly shuttled to downtown. Now they take a feeder bus (or walk a long ways to the station) and spend time stopping at various places along the way. Their commute actually got worse.
Except now they have much faster trips to Roosevelt, the UW and Capitol Hill. Same with Roosevelt. Just the trip from UW to Capitol Hill -- which is merely a small piece of that part of the system -- has thousands of riders.
But with West Seattle, you don't have that dynamic. There will be no stops between Delridge and downtown. Thus riders of the 120 will be screwed. Right when the bus is about to hit the super-express part of the journey, riders will be forced to get off the bus, take the escalators high into the sky (if they are working) and then wait for the infrequent train (which will run every ten minutes or so). Unlike the folks in Northgate, there will be no stops until SoDo -- not exactly a big destination. The vast majority of riders will actually lose time in the process, despite the really high cost. Nor is the transfer point a big destination (unlike people who transfer at the UW or even Northgate).
It is simply the wrong tool for the job. An Open BRT system, forming a spine from West Seattle to Ballard would have made a lot more sense -- and it would have been a lot cheaper (https://seattletransitblog.com/2015/02/18/westside-seattle-transit-tunnel/). The monorail probably lent a sense of respectability to West Seattle rail, when there are far better places for rail in the city. As a result, we are in the process of building crap. OK, its not all crap, but it isn't nearly as good as if we had gone with the Forward Thrust plans back in the day (https://www.theurbanist.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/17013207411_cce9745488_o.jpg). (Notice there is no rail on the West Seattle Bridge -- it has BRT instead).