Does approval of Initiative 83, the monorail killer, preclude building any Seattle monorail? Is this really the fourth time we've voted to construct the sky ride? Whose financial prognosis should we believe? Is the owner of a Hummer the Antichrist?
These are among the questions rattling around Seattle's brain as Initiative 83 nears its Nov. 2 vote. Seattle Weekly consulted Seattle Monorail Project officials and supporters and opponents of the 13.7-mile starter line from Crown Hill to West Seattle. We studied the claims of both sides, posed new questions, and reread the enabling legislation passed in Olympia and the ballot measure approved by Seattle voters in 2002. We watched in amusement as an irritated monorail board member, in the heat of a recent editorial-board debate, told a monorail opponent to "sit down and shut up!" The passion on both sides of this issue is palpable. For those who are less certain, we scrutinized the best available tea leaves on the consequences of voting for or against the so-called recall initiative, which is intended to derail the $1.6 billion plan. Here's what we found. In short, if the measure passes, life gets complicated. If I-83 fails, the project moves ahead, with planned groundbreaking early next year and launch in 2009. But that has its own implications.
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Q: Would an approved I-83 mean the end of the Seattle Monorail Project?
A: No. As the city attorney's explanatory statement in the state Voters Guide says, "I-83 would not directly affect the SMP's power to collect a 1.4 percent MVET [motor vehicle excise tax] or to plan for additional monorail lines." So SMP could continue to exist and collect taxes. This is the result of I-83's backdoor approach. It is the brainchild of a group of monorail opponents called Monorail Recall, now spearheaded by an allied campaign organization, Yes on I-83. But this is not technically a recall.
The recall feature of the state law that enabled creation of the monorail authority (Chapter 35.95A of the Revised Code of Washington, if you're curious) requires the signatures of 15 percent of registered voters in Seattle—an estimated 54,000 people—in 90 days to bring a public vote to end SMP operations. It also requires a finding by the city attorney (in this case, City Attorney Tom Carr, a longtime monorail backer) that SMP has significant financial problems. Recallers thought those requirements made it virtually impossible to place a recall before voters. So they took another path, a citizens' initiative needing only 17,229 signatures (they got 36,700).
If passed, I-83 would direct the City Council to disallow use of city rights of way—streets and sidewalks—by SMP. Theoretically, SMP could still build tracks. But they'd have to be in somebody's backyard.
Q: But in effect, won't an approved I-83 finish off the Seattle Monorail Project?
A: No. In fact, under I-83, SMP can continue "to plan for additional monorail lines," according to the city attorney's explanatory statement, and would continue to own almost $40 million in property and other assets it has acquired. The City Council could amend or flat out repeal I-83 after two years—effectively re-authorizing the project. Even I-83 proponents agree that a yes vote is intended more as a message for SMP to come up with a better plan than burial of the idea. The monorail's lame reply has too often been simply, "Just build it!" Throw it together any way you want? It's the biggest, most life-altering Seattle public project since Denny Hill was flattened.
The best guess is the agency itself would decide its future. "Because the state law doesn't kick in under these circumstances, there is no applicable law" to determine SMP's fate, says Anne Levinson, the monorail's deputy director. For sure, SMP would continue to collect a 1.4 percent motor vehicle excise tax to pay off the $75 million in debt it has incurred in planning and acquiring property so far. Some opponents would like to see the monorail tax rededicated by the Legislature to Sound Transit's light-rail project, while others would prefer it be used to expand the Metro bus system, perhaps developing a rubber-tired system to take over the dedicated monorail route.
Q: What's the biggest drawback to approving I-83?
A:Like Robert Redford's character said to his campaign manager after being elected in the movie The Candidate, what do we do now? I-83 blocks monorail construction but offers no plan for the future. Structural engineer Jon Magnusson, a spokesperson for the Yes on I-83 campaign, makes no apologies for not offering a better way to go. "Doing this [building the monorail] is worse than doing nothing," he says. Nonetheless, an overwhelming yes vote supplants a viable transportation project with dead air.
Q: Where does that leave the voters?
A:To decide, on Nov. 2, the best of two outcomes. The first option is to vote yes and stick with the mass-transportation status quo, which includes Sound Transit's budding regional rapid transit system, and hope someone comes up with a new monorail plan or a similar transit project. A modified monorail plan eventually could be put to voters, or new money could be diverted to other transportation projects, including, gag, more freeways.
