"Watchdog says car-tab fee won't cover monorail cost"
Monorail officials, based on a recent study by ECONorthwest of Portland, have assumed that the motor-vehicle excise tax will increase by an average of 6.1 percent a year between now and 2030, based on growth and increasing car values.But the Monorail's finance director is still optimistic:But a persistent watchdog, Seattle software developer Joel Paston, told monorail finance committee members last night that the most recent motor-vehicle excise collections show the amounts collected from year to year are basically "flat."
He said that during one period the tax revenue increased but there were fewer cars registered. "I don't think it's a good idea to draw conclusions that are hard and fast" from the figures available so far,Indeed. But even if we split the difference between 0% and 6% growth, the Monorail is never going to make its numbers.
UPDATE: This week's Puget Sound Business Journal has an in-depth and even more damning article on the Monorail's finances. The project simply cannot be built and operated with the given financial plan. We have a choice: Either we shut the thing down or we pay hundreds of dollars in additional taxes per person per year for decades to come.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at May 20, 2005 08:33 AM | Email ThisSMP's board is only listening to voices who have a direct financial stake in those exotic debt securities being issued: its lawyers, its staff, the finance consultants it hired, and the investment banks who would underwrite the debt. They are all in an enclosed room breathing their own fumes. The SMP board, individually and collectively, have absolutely no municipal finance experience and there is no reason to believe they have either the inclination or capacity to recognize the numerous warning signs with the extraordinarily risky financing scheme that will be put before them for them to approve. No one with any perspective, or with the interests of taxpayers motivating them, is at the table.
This project has spun way out of control. It is truly scary that it has reached this point, where every indication is that it is not a financially sound infrastructure investment, and no one can slow down the momentum because the system that was created by the 2002 vote was designed to be basically impervious to modification.
Seven self-appointed SMP board members are set to burden this city for generations with a hugely expensive debt. They will agree to impose those taxes on the residents of Seattle, and they will have absolutely no idea when the taxing will cease, or what the total amount of tax will be (perhaps $4.5B), because these are not normal municipal bonds that have a term date.
Posted by: Sam on May 20, 2005 08:57 AMThe failing schools are not enough (though they should be), the pro-union, anti-business City Council is not enough. No, it is going to take a VERY expensive wake up call before the electorate stops blindly supporting the liberal agenda and takes a LOOOOONG hard look at what it is they are voting for...
Seattle gets the kind of government, and with it those public projects, that it deserves. This is one lesson they seriously need to learn from if things will ever get better.
Posted by: dano on May 20, 2005 09:06 AMIn Orlando, the freeway is privatized for 20 years. The municipality provides the right of ways...then it's design and build. Use tolls to pay the way. Lot's of creative technology for tolls that won't back things up a bit. In Orlando
they have only 1 lane for an attendent. They have a lane for exact cash and lanes for folks with stickers that are read by a machine and the vehicle owner is billed monthly. No slow downs.
The Seattle LEFTIST PINHEADS wouldn't even consider privatizing because it means THEY would actually have to pay for it PLUS privatizing doesn't create more Guv'mint jobs. With this approach, Dept of Transportation could get rid of thousands of employees including about 2/3 of their engineers.
I guess privatizing only makes sense when you believe in competition and smaller, more cost effective government.
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on May 20, 2005 10:03 AMI agree, but we need a reasonable state government in place before that happens so that Seattle isn't paid off for all their 'help' by having the state bail them out. If a state bail out occurs there will be no lesson learnt!
Posted by: Fred on May 20, 2005 10:38 AMWhere is my consulting fee?
Posted by: Huey on May 20, 2005 11:06 AMIt's hemmorhaging, the best thing to do is amputate this mass transit failure to save our infrastructure as a whole.
Posted by: Jeff B. on May 20, 2005 11:20 AMHuey, If people would stop trying to block the inevitable, we would have the monorail on time, under budget and solving traffic problems. The monorail will be the only major system in the country that is self sufficent within 15 years.
Posted by: who'dathunk on May 20, 2005 11:22 AM
Would you thwart the will of the people?
Posted by: Doc on May 20, 2005 12:49 PMSilly me, I originally thought that raising the cost of something caused consumption of that something to go down. People also choose lower cost versions of that something. But, that is just silly old economic theory. The Monorail geniouses know how it really works. Everything falls up in their world.
Posted by: DeadManVoting (aka Iguana) on May 20, 2005 01:38 PMNo matter how many felons, dead, and imaginary friends have to vote for it in a statewide election.....
Posted by: Greg on May 20, 2005 01:52 PMThe deceptive, secretively-selected route cannot serve the most riders nor influence the most future development. If 'democratic forces' held any real power, the only route to build is the one which benefits the most people. The proposed route is a sham, regardless of finacial considerations.
That said, monorail is a viable technology and could be built, in mass, were it not for 'business forces' who've always controlled transportation decisions that have made the automobile a monopoly.
Posted by: Sirkulat on May 21, 2005 01:09 PM