Tom Tangney: More monorail in Seattle a ‘pie in the sky’ idea

Seattle residents will be voting on a monorail for the city again this November. While many approved a Seattle monorail plan in the past, even some past supporters are reconsidering this time around.

“Everyone, even people who backed the original monorail are against this now because they say it’s going to district us from the serious concerns we have about public transport,” says Tom & Curley Show host Tom Tangney.

A lot of people, including Tom, are nostalgic about the monorail’s past in Seattle, with its introduction at the 1962 World’s Fair.

“A lot of people my age, who remember the World’s Fair, might actually think, ‘Yeah that would be great, that’s a sweet idea, let’s do a monorail all around town, why not? It’s kind of cool,'” says Tom.

“The thing is we went through that kind of daydream, fantasy for a number of years about a decade ago and it ended up, despite four and five and six votes where we all approved it, we realized we couldn’t afford it. It just didn’t pencil out, economically.”

The plan this time around calls for a $5 car tab fee on vehicles registered in the city to cover funding for planning, design, engineering and environmental review for a monorail system between Ballard, downtown, and West Seattle.

“All we’re doing, at this point, if we vote for it, is to create a board that studies it,” says Tom. “What they’ll do is they’ll put a $5 car tab fee on us to support this and then if we decide we actually want to construct this thing, then we’ve got to do another tax measure.”

Tom understands why people on the west side of the city are looking for more transportation options, but thinks light rail plans that are already much further along will establish the same result.

“Living in the west side of the city, one of the complaints is that the west side from Ballard, Magnolia to downtown, doesn’t get the same kind of transit service as the east side does. Because of that, the monorail was kind of thrown in there to make up for that. If light rail actually can address the issues of west side Seattle people, then I think there’s even less reason to go for it [monorail].”

Trying one more time to bring a monorail to Seattle, after all the past failures, doesn’t seem realistic to Tom.

“It’s pie in the sky. It seems ridiculous.”

And Tom points out the argument supporting the monorail on the voter’s guide won’t convince anyone.

“They may have their planning ready enough to get it on the ballot,” said Tom, “but the one thing is they didn’t get their voter statement in, so when it says ‘Statement for and against’ in the voter’s pamphlet, it’s blank. I think that is well said.”