Ideas for Seattle

I finally got around to touring Link light rail and was impressed mostly with how MLK stations fit into their neighborhoods. I've always figured Monorail and light rail serve similar transit purposes, both are basic regional rapid transit. I don't discount some niche application for PRT, but I don't believe it has the potential to supercede standard rapid transit. Connections to rapid transit lines are critically important. It might be that PRT could apply as connector systems along a fixed route.

I couldn't support the Greenline Monorail route along 2nd Ave, through Seattle Center and Interbay. I figured the better route was along the waterfront (in place of the AWV) up along SR-99 to Battery Street then along Westlake to SPU, descend to surface station there and tunnel under the canal with a surface station on the other side, ascend and follow 15th. With more destinations, I figure this route offered twice the ridership as the Greenline. The importance of connecting transit supported this ridership prediction.

Yes, there was a signed contract to design, build, operate, and maintain 14 miles of monorail for $1.4 billion and it's unlikely that that light rail could truly be cost competitive, but there's a way to find out. If Seattle really wants meaningful transit on the west side of the city, then Metro, Sound Transit, or the City should find a funding source that isn't the MVET and put out a technology -neutral RFP to design and build the line. I'd love to see what real construction and engineering companies can come up with as the most cost effective way to create meaningful, high volume, fixed-guideway, grade-separated transit from West Seattle to Ballard with good connections Downtown.

Art, you've been following innovative transit tech for a long time, so I wonder why you don't know that more PRT stations decreases potential crowding by making station ridershed smaller. This also means stations are closer together, increasing access to transit by foot. And your remark about complexity of the sidings is as inaccurate as the 'monorails can't switch' myth. Finally, the European PRT system at Heathrow is only an initial segment, if proved effective it would expand to every terminal and surrounding hotels and rail stations.

Let's not misportray a transit technology just because one might prefer something else.

Another problem with the Greenline Monorail was its terminii -- from West Seattle, extension south to a Seatac terminus at the Link LRT station, and from Ballard, extension north to Northgate LRT was similarly necessary. There's no question that overhead beam monorail is less expensive and less visually intrusive than overhead light rail. Sure, monorail must be all overhead, but the proposed route really has no surface option for light rail. I'm not really a fan of podcar systems. Too many stations would have too many riders forcibly vying for low-capacity podcars. PRT's extra exit/enter tracks increase cost and complexities. Simple fixed-route, high capacity RT is best. The only podcar system being tested in Europe is a limited line at an airport, not a true PRT.

Yes - a Ballard - West Seattle line is a must - the sooner the better. Yeah, its going to be really expensive, but it will be more so the longer we wait. Take the money that is planned to be spent on the new car tunnel to build a second light rail tunnel under down town and make the rest of the line at grade or elevated. The first thing we need to do is commit the money to studying the options and finding out what it would cost and where stations should be. The current line is a good start, but we need to Ballard - West Seattle line to really have a network that will make the system exponentially more valuable and useful.

Add a mere 4 miles of single-beam guideway to the existing line in 2 loops to each end. -- a short loop around Seattle Center, a longer loop through downtown, the waterfront Coleman Dock and sports arenas, First and Capitol Hills, Denny Triangle and South Lake Union. Such an inner-city circulator has all-day ridership demand guaranteed. Single-beam, rather than double-beam, makes station siting simpler, reduces visual and physical impact and reduces cost. I drafted a design along these lines in the year 2000 and submitted it to Sound Transit, ETC and SMP, the City, State, local FTA branch in Seattle, and mainstream Seattle media. Its cost is estimated at 1/4 that of the Greenline Monorail, yet it produced more ridership. It's first expansion doubled ridership yet remained 1/2 the cost of the Greenline. From this inner-city circulator system, expansion north and south is possible at less cost than the Greenline along somewhat altered routes that produced more ridership. Go monorail. It's called the "Circulator Monorail" and it's part of a larger, integrated transit design proposal called "The Seattle Circulator Plan." Mayor Nickels pooh-pooh'd it from the get-go and made sure it never got a fair review. Seattle's monorail expansion plans were sabotaged from the inside.

This is an obvious and necessary alignment, a step toward a real citywide rapid transit network. I would prefer trains be in a subway due to their bulk; if elevated is a must I still prefer one of the PRT systems ("podcars") with slim rails that are being developed in Europe (two starter systems are imminent).

Green Line advocates spoke of a citywide X of light rail and monorail. I would think in terms of an "asterisk." In addition to the legs of the X, lines down the Aurora Avenue E. Marginal Way corridors would be boons to commuters. Monorail might be appropriate for the latter, since there is so much fill dirt in that area that tunneling might be impractical.