Fact Check: Anti-Monorail Campaign Flyer

As we first documented, the anti-monorail campaign did some polling and found that their extreme anti-tax and anti-transit arguments weren't flying in a city where John Kerry will get 80% of the vote. They also couldn't make a convincing argument that the monorail plan has changed since we approved it the third time. So instead their high-priced PR firm Gogherty & Stark (the original Sound Transit PR firm) gave them an extreme makeover and changed the campaign to argue that we shouldn't build a citywide monorail system because light rail is better. (Note that buildthemonorail.com has always supported all transit, including Sound Transit's light rail)

This week the monorail's opponents paid for a propaganda flyer to be included in the Seattle Weekly. Here is our complete analysis of its numerous inaccuracies and distortions:

1. Flawed Premise: The core of the anti-monorail campaign is the theory that denying right-of-way for the monorail will result in more money going to Sound Transit's light rail project. Their spokesman Judd Marquardt even admitted in an interview on KTTH that this scheme is impossible. The tax imposed by the monorail was created by the state legislature specifically for cities to build monorail systems. It cannot be spent on a regional light rail system. To state or imply otherwise is a deliberate lie.

2. Monorail's Expandability: The opponents claim that the monorail can't be expanded. In fact, the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) is already planning the 2nd phase of a citywide system. In addition, Sound Transit is looking at monorail as a key technology for their future expansion.

3. Light Rail Project Inaccuracies: The flyer describes the light rail project as being 14 miles from SeaTac to Downtown Seattle and to UW. In fact, light rail is only being built from Tukwila to Downtown. The portions to the airport and UW were cut due to their over-budget woes.

4. Taxpayer Resources: The opponents claim that the monorail should be canceled because "we don't have unlimited taxpayer resources". That decision has already been made. Seattle voters approved the monorail tax in 2002 because they know we need solutions to the transportation problems in the city. Rising gas prices and increasing density mean that we need as much rapid transit as possible.

5. They Never Connect: The anti-monorail campaign continues to claim that monorail and Sound Transit don't provide convenient connections for riders. The truth is that they connect in 4 places. Monorail and light rail will come within a block of eachother at James St., Royal Brougham, and near Westlake Center. If a block seems far, consider that you must walk at least a block just to exit a light rail station. Also, the monorail station at King Street will be right next to the Sounder stop - that's several times closer than Sounder is to light rail. Monorail will be as well or better integrated with Sound Transit than any of the 3 types of transportation provided by Sound Transit are to each other.

6. Capacity: The flyer contains a graph that compares the station lengths of the new Seattle monorail to other mass transit systems. Note that they could have compared a graph of maximum people per hour per direction, but that would have showed monorail in a good light. So, they chose one of monorail's advantages and tried to turn it against the project. The train supplier for the green line is Hitachi, who makes large, very high capacity monorail cars. This allows the system to carry more people with smaller stations. In addition, the automation of monorail allows it to operate more frequently, increasing capacity even more. Note that while Sound Transit has provisioned large stations (almost 2 city blocks long!!), their ground-level sections of tracks will limit their frequency to 6 minutes, compared to 2 minutes for the monorail. Additionally, the Las Vegas monorail uses Bombardier trains that are smaller, thus needing longer trains and larger stations to carry enough people.

The real proof for capacity is how many people are projected to ride the system. Sound Transit's 14 mile light rail system is projected to handle 45,000 people by 2020. The supposedly smaller capacity monorail will carry many more - 65,000 by 2020. The RFP for monorail specifies a more than enough capacity to handle that plus future expansion.

7. Single Beam: Opponents continue to try and make an issue of single beam, saying that the SMP proposed it as a cost reduction measure. The fact is that the agency has said any number of times that the single beam was included to fit better into neighborhoods at the end of the line where maximum capacity can be smaller. In any case, it is strictly optional. The bidder on the project has the ability to omit the single track sections and put dual tracks throughout. Press reports have indicated that their solution contains much less single track than the maximum allowed in the Request for Proposal.

8. Expansion: The anti-monorail campaign wants you to believe that monorail systems can't be expanded. This is just silly. Monorail's still have tracks that can be added on to just like any other system. The citywide plan shows a detailed assessment of how the monorail will be expanded to cover the majority of the city.

9. Flexibility: Opponents lament the fact that monorail doesn't travel at ground level where it would get stuck in traffic with all of the other cars on our roads. Of course it doesn't - that is the main advantage. Being elevated separates the monorail from the slow gridlock below and keeps from making car travel even worse. For an opinion on running trains in the middle of traffic, you might ask the citizens of Houston. Also, the flyer claims that monorail can't run underground. This is just an outright falsehood. Monorail can run in a tunnel just like light rail or a subway. The reason it doesn't is due to the cost - 4 times as much as being elevated. Elevated transit gives you all of the speed advantages of a subway, but with much cheaper and quicker construction.

10. Other Cities: Many lemmings assume that we should always do exactly as other cities in the US have done: build only light rail or buses. The difference with Seattle is that we know that there is a better way. We've ridden on our monorail for years and can intuitively see how nice it would be to travel the entire city on it. We can see how rising above the traffic makes for quicker trips and allows us to enjoy our beautiful Northwest scenery.

11. Construction Costs: The flyer includes a graph of costs per mile for light rail and monorail systems in the US. All of the light rail systems mentioned such as Dallas are cheap because they only run at grade using free right-of-way that was abandoned by freight railroads - something that's not available here. They claim that a figure isn't available for the Seattle Monorail due to the contract negotiations currently in progress. However, the Seattle Monorail project has a hard cost limit of $1.6 Billion, which works out to $114 million per mile. Also note that a cost figure isn't provided for Sound Transit. At $2.6 billion for their 14 miles, that works out to $185 million per mile, or 60% more expensive than monorail.

12. Operation and Maintenance Costs: One of the more fact-challenged portions of the flyer, this includes a graph comparing the cost per passenger mile for a variety of light rail systems and three supposed monorail systems. The only problem is that 2 of the 3 monorail systems listed aren't monorails at all - they're rubber tired light rail vehicles. The one monorail used for comparison is the Jacksonville Skyway that only goes 2.5 miles and has been described as very poorly placed. This gives it a low ridership of 3,000 people per day compared to the 65,000 projected for the Seattle monorail. Lower riders and a short distance means that capital and fixed operational costs are amortized over a much smaller number of people, resulting in a high cost per passenger mile. Not a problem with monorail - just a single example of a poorly designed transportation system.

13. Fanciful Map of Regional Light Rail: Someone with limited graphic abilities drew up a map showing all the places light rail could run. It shows areas that Sound Transit has never even talked about for light rail, such as Ballard, Fremont, and across the lake to Redmond. King County Monorail actually has a much more realistic vision of regional transportation, but using monorail instead of slower, more expensive light rail.

At the end of the day all of the talk of regional solutions is actually telling Seattle citizens that they don't matter. Some people believe that we just exist to fund the transportation priorities of the region while we sit stuck in traffic on our own city streets. Seattle citizens approved the monorail 3 times because we recognize the need to take control of our own destiny. We can't wait around for Kent and Sammamish to get around to supporting real mass, rapid transit. We'll build a solution to support our local needs, and in 10, 20, or 30 years they can finally come on board and continue it outside the city limits.

Save the monorail: Vote NO on I-83!!