monorail : the long goodbye
The monorail may have a posse, but it no longer has the right to be built and it’s taxing authority is about to be revoked. 2045 Seattle reports that the city council used this morning’s meeting to unanimously vote to (essentially) kill the project. [#]
From the sounds of it, this decision to abandon four votes of support means that the monorail will need yet another public vote if it is to rise from the ashes. Meanwhile, with the council’s decision, hopes of Seattle’s becoming a somewhat modern city with grade-separated public mass transit look grim.
Enjoy your last chance to experience our only glimmer of modern transportation by taking a final ride through the bus tunnel before it closes tonight for the next two years.
Like a bad soap story, the drama continues. In a last minute act, the monorail board put the monorail up for a public vote in November. Game on!
The part about the monorail drama that I find most depressing is thinking about how hard it will be to get an entire system built if there’s this much trouble over a single (now partial) line.