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| Home Front: Economy |
| The Death of a Mengasso Boondoggle |
| 2005-11-10 |
| One day after voters jilted the Seattle Monorail Project, its leaders moved to shut the agency down and sell unused land as quickly as possible. "Transit's been killed. It's an execution," interim Executive Director John Haley said of Tuesday's vote, in which nearly two of three voters opposed the SMP's attempt to build a reduced, 10-mile line from West Seattle to Interbay. "But I respect the will of the voters, and they were crystal clear they want this project killed..." ...Q: Whose fault is it the project collapsed? A: Murray blames mismanagement. He said SMP's June finance proposal (later abandoned) to collect $11 billion to pay off a $2 billion line was "outrageous," and board members overstated their ability to fund the route. "The problem was, they said they could build that system for the amount of money they said they'd raise," but SMP actually couldn't afford the 14-mile line it designed, with difficult water crossings and a tight fit through Seattle Center, he said... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #3 Seattle taxi drivers explained to me how the transit dept forced them to switch to natural gas but required buying it from a transit department station at twice the cost of equiv. gas. Massive fines and loss of taxi license if they didn't agree. BUT they have no such requirement for their own equipment and have some of the most smokey buses in the west. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-11-10 10:37 |
| #2 The Chicago area has a regional transit authority. By law they have to raise 50% of their revenues at the farebox. I think they actually do, excepting some of the usual accounting tricks. The rest comes from a gas tax. I've always been in favor of mass transit for everyone else, so that they'd get the hell off the road and let me get to where I need to go. :-) |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-11-10 10:30 |
| #1 mass transit rarely pays its' own way, relying on massive subsidies. The San Diego Trolley is full most of the time, yet fares cover something like 33% of costs |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-11-10 10:06 |