Die, Monorail, Die

Today's Seattle Times reports that "Landlords emerge as foes to monorail", as downtown landlords discover the havoc and destruction the proposed Monorail would wreak on city streets. But the One-Track Minds seem oblivious to the groundswell of opposition to their scheme:

Seattle Monorail Project spokeswoman Natasha Jones says the Green Line is being built to benefit more than just commercial-property owners. She said a host of other groups, including environmentalists, commuters and many businesses owners, back the line.

"A large number of people have worked night and day to bring this to fruition. You can't discount them just because they don't own a building," she said. "This came from grass roots and people who were tired of being stuck in their cars. You have to look at that, too."

More than 30,000 Seattle voters signed the petition to put the Recall initiative on the ballot. The vast majority of us are not commercial-property owners.

The Monorail is to public transportation as the Mariners are to baseball

I stopped by the SMP headquarters last week to pick up some documents under a Public Disclosure Act request. Not much to report yet on the documents that I've seen so far, but I was intrigued by the giant poster in the front lobby that displays the Monorail timeline of past and future milestones. As reported earlier, the Monorail had always promised an opening date of December 2007, but that has been pushed back to 2009. The poster in the SMP lobby has a sticker over the original text in the 2007 slot which says

Great News! Early opening for entire Green Line by Summer of 2009.

Their other prediction for 2007?

Mariners Win World Series

Given the Mariners' current 2nd to last place standing in the American League, I would have to say that the likelihood of a Mariners World Series win in 2007 probably is about as good as the likelihood of the Monorail opening in 2009.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at August 02, 2004 10:53 AM | Email This