disclaimer: served as a member of the ETC - Elevated Transportation Company before moving to Greece. I still support the monorail over Sound Transit. Light rail has a flaw in that people, around the world, are killed by the trains. There is light rail here in Greece (Athens tram line) and several people have been killed in the 13 months its been in operation. Monorail is grade separated. This is not to say that SMP has no problems. They've got plenty and not being straight with the public is the biggest IMO. But it can be resolved. Remember Sound Transit is just as expensive, but since it involves federal dollars rather than local, it just seems to be free.

And they should be. You should join BetterDonkey and tell us more about it. One of the problems in this whole discussion is that we often don't hear from people with expertise but without any financial incentive to spin one way or the other.

Seriously though, joining BetterDOnkey is free and it allows you to:
-Get emails about events (like awesome happy hours), hot issues, etc...
-Ask to become a blogger
-Send Private Messages
-Get first crack at free tickets and schwag as it comes our way.

Seriosuly, Join up, we'd love to hear more from you.

great to hear from someone who worked for ETC.

the concern with light rail and fatalities is one i've never thought of. however, it should be noted that, of the initial 14 mile Central link (Tukwilla to Westlake) roughly 8 miles will be in tunnels or elevated.

the proposed current north link will be almost entirely in tunnels with a small above ground section from Greenlake to south Northgate.

it is definitely a concern. i don't know how ST plans to address it.

has athens done anything?

i agree that ST is expensive, but the benefits of getting matching federal dollars seems to be too good to pass up.

but I've been told that ST has estimates, based on local projections and on data from other cities with existing light rail lines, regarding the number of people who will be killed by ST light rail.

Yes, ST has been working to keep people (especially school kids) in South Seattle informed about the way at-grade (on the ground) rail will affect them, and the crosswalks and guardrails they'll use will give decent protection. But still. People will die. And those people will likely be poor and they will likely be black. Sure sure, light rail has to be at-grade there due to soil conditions blah blah blah, but there you have it. Dead black kids*.

Maybe this will make for a good slogan for a reworked monorail-- "Monorail: It never gets Stuck in Traffic... Now with fewer dead black kids!"

Maybe not.

*and also dead Southeast Asian kids, 'cause a lot of families from that part of the world live down there too.

Yes, ST has been working to keep people (especially school kids) in South Seattle informed about the way at-grade (on the ground) rail will affect them, and the crosswalks and guardrails they'll use will give decent protection.

and that's all they can do. i mean, seriously, maybe the monorail won't kill people, but buses, cars, trains and trucks will. all ST can do is educate. i'm not saying i don't care, but if ST makes an effort to educate and makes safety a concern, it's all they can do. i'm sure people die in the NYC and DC subways, but does it mean we should shut them down?

amy, you know me and you know that i'm pretty socially aware, but i'd like to know how you made the leap from "people will die" to "minorities will die". yes, south seattle is more diverse than the north and there will be more at grade level trains in the south than the north, but as you go farther south into tukwila and seatac, is gets less diverse again.

are you implying that ST is willing to let more causalities happen in south seattle than north?

that sounds a bit outrageous to me.

Whether the victims will be disproportionately of one socio-economic class. In the end though, this is another case of not letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. We can fix problems like that with more warning signs, more guard rails and more education...it doesn't seem like a good enough reason to pick one method over the other.

it is fair, but i don't see where amy gets her conclusion. i'm not saying she's wrong, but i just wanted to talk about it more.

The Link line from Columbia City through Rainier Beach is at-grade. Because it's more affordable, South Seattle has the highest density of families with children in the city. That area is also home to New Holly and Rainier Vista, two Seattle Housing Authority facilities that house primarily immigrant families from places like Africa and Southeast Asia, and single parent female-headed African-American households. The people who live in the neighborhood where the train will be at-grade are predominantly minorities, and predominantly poor. Also, it's kids more than adults who run out into the road or take other risks, thinking that something or someone is looking out for them.

I walked that part of the line a year ago with the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board to check out the construction conditions & see how ST was doing with pedestrian mitigation. Two great things about this at-grade business are that ST has, as a part of their construction contract, agreed to fix the (totally fucked up and unusable) sidewalks, and is funding the construction of the Chief Sealth Trail, which is essentially the Burke-Gilman of the South End.

So I don't think it's all bad. And I don't know the history or geology or financials of how ST happens not to be taking Link off-grade in the poorest part of the city, so I'm not implying that ST is willing to let more casualties happen in South Seattle; I'm sure they don't want it, but that's going to be the reality of it. And that reality sucks.

The entire history of transportation in this country is one of tearing up the places where poor people live, and putting highways there. The current generation of transportation planners is now faced with righting the wrongs of the last 50 years, and they still don't always get it right (like I said, I don't know the ins and outs of how ST planned Link-- maybe someone else around here does-- so maybe the south end reality was unavoidable but it's still a reality). I'm also not saying we should shut Link down. But we do need to be aware of the realities of at-grade rail, and make sure that ST keeps their promises in terms of safety for the residents of affected neighborhoods.

"I walked that part of the line a year ago with the Seattle Pedestrian Advisory Board to check out the construction conditions & see how ST was doing with pedestrian mitigation."

Damn you first hand experience! Damn you!

**shakes fist at the sky**

Amy clearly has you by the throat.

I was there the first day the Sounder ran from Puyallup to Seattle! I rode downtown and enjoyed every minute of it. At the same time everyone was saying that the Sounder wasn't worth it, complete waste of money, no one would use it, etc., I saw ridership double...triple...and grow to full cars, packed parking lots, and easy commutes!! While I don't work downtown anymore, one of my children still rides it in (he started taking it at age 14 to school every day).

I will say that the at-ground light rail in the Rainer Valley area is a concern for me. People do stupid stuff. Luckily there is a divider fence at every Sounder station to keep people from crossing the tracks. But the light rail has no such provision.

An example of stupid people is a gentleman I know (some of you may remember the news reports on him) who was leaving a Mariner's game..drunk..and he decided that he didn't want to wait for a train which was stopped on Royal-Brougham. He and his friends decided to climb between the cars so that they could get across the intersection. When this guy was passing through, the trains started moving and his foot was caught up by the car connections. He ended up having his leg amputated. One of my children was in gymnastics with his daughter. I have seen the destruction of what this does to a family from the traumatized daughter, the incapacitated man who can no longer work, to the anxiety-ridden wife who has to work part-time jobs just to pay bills because she was a housewife with no skills.

I don't want that to happen with the high family population in the Rainer Valley area. Tacoma's light rail, while a blast to ride and a wonderful use of public transportation, is located in a warehouse/industrial and business district of Tacoma. The route through the Rainer Valley is in a huge residential district. Statistically this will lead to more accidents.

I believe that people need options. I support the Monorail (along with the 2045seattle.com group). I just feel that we need revisit the chalkboard (similar to this piece from 2002 - http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=weeksop15&date=20020115). I would pay for pavers, bonds, donations to help pay for it. I feel that the Board overseeing this project have succumbed to huge scope creep and that the project needs to reigned in. But I think that if we discard this option it will hurt us down the road (pun intended).

CoreyAnn :)