Liberal Talk Radio

So it looks like we may get a FIFTH chance to vote on the embattled Seattle Monorail. Yay.

According to the P-I, the following options are on the table:

- A West Seattle-to-downtown segment only, possibly saving up to $450 million.

- Shortening the line at both ends, with the West Seattle terminus at Alaska Junction and the Ballard terminus at either Northwest Market Street or Northwest 65th Street, at an undetermined saving.

- Bypassing Seattle Center to follow Second Avenue East from lower Queen Anne. That would eliminate the crossing of the center and the initially approved segment on Fifth Avenue East. Estimates of that saving range from $20 to $80 million, without any detailed study yet.

I have to say that none of these sound very appealing. I could see doing the first one, because it would mean you’d still be able to do the rest of the line later on. Shortening the line at the ends makes zero sense to me. The ends are the cheapest to build, because they run along a relatively level surface street. The last mile, from NW 65th St to NW 85th St will be a breeze compared to the Duwamish River and Ballard Ship Canal crossings. Tenants of Seattle Center (Key Arena, the theaters, the opera, etc.) should vehemently oppose the last option, as it would cut their little world off even more from the rest of the city.

At this point I’m not sure what you do. A fine pickle we’ve gotten ourselves into here. We can’t afford to build the thing, and we’ve already spent close to $200m in planning, permits, and land acquisition. A helluva thing, this is. In the end, what’s going to kill this project is what Matski referred to back in the day as the principal agent problem. No one has a selfish enough motivation to push the thing through, so the negotiation costs get infinitely high. Death by process.

You can be sure if a single real estate developer, mobster, politician, or other powerful interest wanted this thing done, it would be done. But instead we have a coalition of relatively powerless Seattle do-gooders, with the best intentions but without the financial weight to will it into existence. By contrast, principal agent and Microsoft billionaire Paul Allen will have his pet streetcar up and running in two years’ time.

Oh well, at least the Monorail folks have figured out what kind of public art to decorate the stations with. ‘Cause that’s important.