Monorail cars collide in Seattle

Another news linky...with pics!

Seattle Times- Monorail side swipe

Interesting thing here in Seattle about the Monorail. We just had local elections and Prop 1 to approve the continued development of an expanded monorail system failed by a pretty good margin. The massive mismanagement and poor financing plan (ever heard of anything done on a 50 year bond?) combined to kill it. This crash isn't going to encourage anyone to support it in the future.

So who profits by the demise of the monorail project?

The Monorail project grew out of public dissatisfaction with a lregional lightrail project known as Sound Transit. This project has now spent half a billion dollars and not actually begun construction. These are rival goverment transit agencies (and also seperate from the bus system). Each system has it's political backers, all are supported by Unions since they get to work on building any of them as well as by downtown real estate developers who believe that better transit would help them sell overpriced condos in Belltown. Lined up heavily against the Monorail were individual auto owners who we're paying an annual liscensing fee of 1.4% of the value of there car to finance the boondoggle (the 50 year bond plan meant paying 9 billion in interest on a 2.5 billion project). The timing is a little off for a real life "run" because the election already happened, but the elements are all there for one if someone wanted to use it, I would recommend competing City Council members as Johnsons for one side or another since transit is a public venture, and a major piece of political patronage in this city. Ironically with the 50 year bond plan we would still have been paying for the Monorail while it was shutdown, then rerouted around the Archology when it shut down.

[Edit]Ok I should explain about the Arcology statement as I'm sure a few of you are going to jump in and point out the Arcology didn't shutdown until 2059, 54 years from now. Due to the ongoing studies and contract bidding bonding and constructions wasn't slated to begine for another 4-5 years by most estimates.[/edit]