Notes on spaces seen through windows
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| Recluse reflections: PI focuses on too few questions in story on monorail short line Notes on spaces seen through windows |
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Tuesday, October 11, 2005 PI focuses on too few questions in story on monorail short line
The headline looked promising:Monorail, Take 2: Short line, long list of concerns While the story that followed was a good start, it only hinted at what that long list of concerns might include. The story highlights three important issues about the new 10.6 mile short line from Alaska Junction in West Seattle, through downtown and Queen Anne, with a terminal in the Interbay industrial area. The PI reporter solicited comments from both proponants and opponents on these issues:
As always, SMP officials answer each of these questions with a "Yes", but without much data to back up the assertions. Once again, we're told that the transit agency is "working on" a plan and that they're sure that everything will pencil out just fine in their forthcoming study. Unfortunately, SMP still seems to be operating as they have for years: Generating studies to justify a conclusion rather than studies that would generate a more reliable conclusion. I have a few more questions about this new short-line proposal: Does the SMP budget include adequate funds for contingencies like lawsuits and mitigation payments? The original financing plan set aside just over $100 million for contingencies. Is that enough? It seems like an overly optimistic reserve fund. Consider that they're likely to face a rash of lawsuits only when they finally release an actual construction plan. Downtown landlords and tenants have telegraphed their objections to the elevated alignment for months. SMP should expect to face lawsuits when they finally release a detailed construction plan. There would probably be other suits from neighborhoods when landlords see that a 4-by-5 foot column is placed directly in front of a business or residence. Whatever the result of those suits might be, it's going to cost money to deal with them. Even without the suits, SMP is likely to be required to pay mitigation fees for construction that could significantly draw down their reserve fund. Construction mitigation along Second Ave. downtown is likely to be costly since it would require re-routing of several bus lines. Sound Transit, for example, had to pay $24 million in mitigation fees when they the bus tunnel closure disrupted downtown bus routes. Monorail construction along Second would probably be at least as disruptive as the tunnel closure. In a September letter to Council Member Richard Conlin, the Seattle Planning Commission warned that the low SMP contingency reserves could become a problem for the city: Were the City to insist on improvements to the design of the guideway and stations, or choose to enforce the required mitigation measures regarding pedestrian access, the effect would be to deplete the project contingency and reserve funds at the outset of the project. That might place the project in a financially untenable position. To avoid that consequence, the City may have no choice but to accept the bare-bones design of the project as it is, and not enforce the mitigation measures in the Transit Way Agreement regarding pedestrian access. [.pdf copy of the Planning Commission letter] Will SMP will be required to build the entire short line or could they make it even shorter? A provision of the new ballot measure would allow SMP to adopt "further modifications of the plan if necessary to obtain City Council final approval". The main explanation of this clause so far has focused on alignment changes that might shave some cost off of the proposed system, like sending the trains and their supporting viaduct through the densely populated Belltown neighborhood. But it's not clear to me from any of the discussions I've heard about this new plan-for-a-plan that it wouldn't also give SMP the authority to make more radical cuts. Some of the alignments that were rejected during the board's much-delayed discussions about ballot alternatives might resurface as they try to find a project that would fit their revenues. One alignment that strikes me as likely to resurface is a line that would end at King Street Station and wouldn't even attempt to make the expensive and controversial downtown crossing. Would this kind of change be allowed under the new provision? Technorati tags: Seattle monorail Seattle Monorail Project Seattle Boondoggle posted by WebWrangler | 6:19 AM | Link | 0 comments
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