SEATTLE — Seattle cabdriver Dick Falkenbury remembers how hard it used to be to build political support for the monorail, the Seattle Times reported. With some nervousness, he would pick up his home phone and start trying to convince people that the city’s elevated experiment of 1962 could be extended to create a useful citywide transportation system.
“People tell you to your face you’re being silly,” he recalls. “The first day was tough.”
Seven years and three citizen petitions later, powerful companies are lining up to give money to the monorail effort. They include Starbucks, Goldman Sachs, the Seattle Mariners, Bombardier, Paul Allen’s Vulcan and numerous engineering and construction firms.
As of Monday, the pro-monorail campaign reported $367,053 in cash contributions and donated labor, with two weeks until voters decide whether to build a 14-mile, $1.75 billion monorail connecting Ballard, Seattle Center, downtown and West Seattle.
Depending on your view about the monorail, the donations represent a vote of confidence in the project or special interests shouldering their way toward lucrative post-election contracts.
“They’re not concerned with the overall effect on the city,” says Richard Borkowski, president of People for Modern Transit, who supports investments in regional light rail instead of city monorail. “It’s a dollars-and-cents proposition for their business.”
On the other hand, Patrick Kylen, campaign manager for Rise Above It All, the pro-monorail organization, said contractors and other potential beneficiaries give to all sorts of causes, including Referendum 51. The highway-funding measure’s $4.1 million kitty includes cash from Boeing, Microsoft, the Asphalt Paving Association of Washington and the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties.
“Every person or company that contributes to this (monorail) campaign supports increasing the value of the city,” he said. “Everyone realizes we need to build mass transit in Seattle that rises above the traffic … Everybody realizes the importance of moving their workers to work and back.”
Among the 507 reported donations, 381 were for $100 or less. Others have tossed dollar bills in a fishbowl outside the homes of Elevated Transportation Co. Chairman Tom Weeks and monorail activist Cleve Stockmeyer, who have hosted weekend parties.
“To me, the key is the number of contributors we have. That shows just a phenomenal support for this campaign,” Kylen said.
Citizens Against the Monorail reports 64 donations of cash and labor worth $29,830. The monorail used to be a longshot cause, but now its opponents look like the underdogs.
Opposition leader Henry Aronson, an attorney and former Port commissioner, has leveraged his group’s limited resources through sidewalk press conferences, a lawsuit over ballot language, a forceful performance in debates and by turning cartoon character Marge Simpson into a symbol of monorail opposition. Last weekend on the Fauntleroy Way footbridge appeared a cost-effective banner: “Monorail Riders: Where Will They Park?”
Here are some major pro-monorail donors and their stake in the outcome:
— Vulcan, a $26,000 donor, would like the proposed Green Line to pass through the Experience Music Project in the event the historic Seattle Center Monorail is dismantled. The new monorail would reach Seahawks Stadium, home to an Allen-owned football team, and improve access to Vulcan properties north and south of downtown. Vulcan has also given $50,000 to Referendum 51.
— Starbucks, a $6,000 donor, is headquartered near a proposed station. And monorail officials, especially Falkenbury, want to lease space to cafes at stations — in contrast to Vancouver, B.C., which bans lattes or food on its elevated SkyTrain. Starbucks also gave $40,000 to Referendum 51.
— Goldman Sachs, Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Paine Webber are each $10,000 donors, and Seattle-Northwest Securities gave $3,000. Monorail funding proposals call for the first $1.1 billion in bonds to be sold next year to take advantage of low interest rates, and more than one of these firms may get a share of the business.
— Washington Group International, at $30,000, would pair with Hitachi to bid on the construction and train systems. Their competitors are the team of Granite Construction and Bombardier, who are building the new Las Vegas monorail and gave a combined $25,000 to Rise Above It All.
State transportation official criticizes idea of I-5 monorail
State Secretary of Transportation Doug MacDonald has issued an online report against the idea of building a regional monorail along Interstate 5.
Such a system would present engineering nightmares at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, the Lake Washington Ship Canal and freeway overpasses, he says.
MacDonald did not directly challenge the proposed Green Line monorail, which will be up for voter approval Nov. 5. But his site includes an unflattering look at other monorails, and he says monorails have less carrying capacity than light rail.
His statements are at www.wsdot.wa.gov/transit/monorail/default.htm