(Seattle) Monorail's building, debt costs balloon to $11 billion (sold to voters as $2 billion!)

Seattle Post-Intelligence ^ | 6/22/05 | JANE HADLEY

[Wolfie]

And in NYC the antis went banana over less than $1 billion for the West Side Stadium which is now dead.

Perhaps they knew the estimate was as worthless as this one.

[eyespysomething]

I hate it when I'm not quick enough.

[commonasdirt]

Anyone who has ever ridden the existing monorail on a (rare)hot summer day in Seattle will tell you it is like being a bug under a magnifying glass. Hop the new one is better. They will have to run a lot of tourists on the thing to recover 11 Billion. I predict a typical unused mass transit failure

[Abram]

Don't you get it...this is Seattle math. $2 billion means $11 billion...once they do their "studies", environmental impacts, assessments, and then hire 100 union guys to stand around and look busy. Then they get their paid breaks, lunchs, disappearing while works.

I hate Seattle...I guess that is why I only work in it and live far outside the city.

[NonValueAdded]

"This is a 100-year system we're aiming for," she said.

And there is part of the problem. Consider ... 100 years ago, where was the automobile? the airplane? Would it make sense to lock in the technology of the Model-T or the Wright flyer? When they exceed the expected technological life span to make the financing work, it is a problem. A huge one. All you have here are pigs at the public trough.

[Faraday]

~$1,000,000,000 per mile. Hmmm..... Buying chauffered limosines for all the actual users would be cheaper.

[rockrr]

Heck, a private, chauffeur driven helicopter ride for every rider would be cheaper!

"Where the hell are our hover cars? They promised us hover cars!" - "Red" Forman, That 70's Show

[Guillermo]

Original projected cost: $2 billion

Updated projected cost: $11 billion

Actual cost: Priceless, because the Environuts in Seattle will be assuaging their consciences by doing something for the Earth, and that can't be measured in monetary costs.

[Rakkasan1]

"You could do the same thing by hiring a group of people to break car windows and another group to repair the same car windows. Voila! Employment for a bunch of people! don't say that. you'll only encourage our MN legislators.

[cogitator]

Light rail, monorail, subway etc. systems are not cost-effective to build now. Express bus systems (Bus Rapid Transit) are much cheaper and they get the job done just as effectively, if not more so.

Chapter 3: Curitiba Experience

Bus Rapid Transit Policy Center

One item in a presentation about the Dulles Rail program outside of DC indicated that BRT will replace a planned monorail expansion in Las Vegas.

[oblomov]

I agree. I would add the new Unigov plan, Bart Peterson's bail-out for Center Twp.

[jonrick46]

It's not the cost of the Monorail that's costing $11 billion, it's the cost of that prime property on Lake Washington. You have to realize that a top dog in the Metro bureaucracy does not come cheap. They want their perks of the position even if it means cost overruns and a tax burden that drives more hard working families out of Seattle.

[zlala]

I thought you'd find this interesting.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Railroad, Steamboat, River and Canal,
Yonder comes a sucker, and Seattle got his money.

[PatoLoco]

But on the plus side, the monorail put Ogdenville, North Haverbrook, and Brockway on the map.

[Heartofsong83]

For that $11 billion, they could rebuild and widen EVERY freeway in the metropolitan area, build a massive bus, passenger ferry and light rail network and STILL have lots of money to spare!

[RJL]

Monorail spokeswoman Natasha Jones said the $11 billion number looks big because it includes inflated future dollars.

"It does look like a big number when you get out that far," she said.

And why did financing "get out that far"? Because it's a huge number!

[vox_freedom]

Come on now folks, $900,000,000 per mile is actually cheap I tell you... //sacrasm now off

[John O]

yet further proof that no mass transit system ever makes money.

This fiasco will be in the red forever and then wehn it breaks down in two to five years (as all these things do) there will be no money to repair it.

they should have just financed it with NEA money because like most of the trash that NEA funds this will just sit there, look ugly, and be useless

[Clemenza]

And in NYC the antis went banana over less than $1 billion for the West Side Stadium which is now dead.

Amen. Let the bridge and tunnel crowd pay for their own stadium in Jersey.