Seattle Mayor Pulls Support From Monorail Project

Transportation issues aren't really my forte, but there is something about the whole monorail project that has never made sense to me. I don't have an issue with the cost, because it seems like any large-scale transportation project of this nature, whether it's monorail or light rail or roadway improvements or whatever, is going to cost a lot of money and take a long time to pay off. The problem I have had with it is that the proposed monorail project would not really do very much to alleviate what I perceive to be the major traffic problem facing the Seattle metropolitan area.

Combine that with the fact that we have a light rail system also going in. Now to me, as a person living in the 'burbs, it makes more sense to have one mode of transport capable of alleviating our traffic problem not just in the city, but out in the 'burbs as well. And, as a person who has at one time or another done just about every commute you can think of (Eastside to Seattle, Queen Anne and Capitol hill into the city, Capitol Hill to Eastside, Bothell to Kirkland, Fremont to Kirkland, Mukilteo to Kirkland and even Whidbey Island to Seattle!) I don't think the in-city commute is the most pressing transportation problem. The more pressing problem is the people sitting in stop and go traffic from Seattle or Bellevue to points as far north as Marysville and Arlington, as far east as North Bend, and as far south as Pierce County.

People who do those commutes don't do them just because they like their cars, they do them because decent affordable housing is hard to find in Seattle. A family looking for a 3 bedroom house with a yard and in a good school district that only has $300K to spend is going to have a hard time finding that in the city. So they feel they are forced to make the longer commutes. Snohomish county is now one of the 5 fastest growing counties in the nation and Pierce is right up there as well. So you end up with more and more people making these long treks every day. Bus service out to these areas exists but it can literally take hours both ways, only runs at limited times, and just isn't a very viable option for most people.

So, we have these huge traffic jams on I-5 and I-405. It's even a problem for businesses like Boeing that have to use the roadways to move products around. So, it isn't just a quality of life issue for the people who've "chosen" to live in these areas, it's a jobs issue as well.

So just to throw my hat into the ring on this, I'm in favor of the light rail system, and would rather see us spend 11 billion to make that a viable option (for instance, more service on the north-south lines so that it actually becomes convenient to use, and getting the east-west lines built), than continue putting that money into a transportation system that only benefits a small number of neighborhoods.