Monorail hugger rains on the Streetcar parade

"Krischer writes from Cologne, Germany, and his essays are fascinating accounts of the monorail religion as it tries to spread across the globe."

"Cult" would work too.

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So in other parts of the world, a monrail can be built for under 10 Million a mile... far cheaper than SLUT cost us. Worse, SLUT shares the road with cars. Traffic Jam? SLUT will be stuck in it with you.... HOWEVER The Monorail... the lowly 1.5 mile run... has delivered more than 45 MILLION passengers... and NEVER gets caught in traffic jams for Seahawks, Mariners, concerts, Bumbershoot, Seafair Parades, bad weather, snow, etc. It needs another 5 million to get it up to speed after 45 years of operation. Care to show me any OTHER form of transit that runs 45 years and then needs about one TENTH of what it cost to build the SLUT?

Even our 3 BILLION Dollar new Interuban shares the road for part of the run... I cannot wait until the first accident on Rainer Avenue clogs the entire system.

I don't care if it is super-busses, monorails, street cars, trolleys or interubans... but having any of them on their OWN SEPERATE roadway / rails provides an alternative to when roads gridlock. And simple geography means gridlock will remain...

Being PRAGMATIC is not a cult... and if it is a religion, I wish more would practice it.

For what SLUT cost us, and will continue to cost us all, ride it or not, we MAYBE could have extended the CURENT Monorail all the way to, say, Second Avenue, with stops for the Market, Beneroya, and then run it down to the Stadiums. Imagine being able to park your car at one end of town, and taking the monorail over the grid lock to the events at the OTHER end of town. Just another 1.5 miles... just imagine...
One could park at the Seattle Center, and attend stadium events, or vice versa. Visitors could go to the market without clogging our streets. On could park at either end of the downtown core and go to concerts, restaurants and shows without clogging downtown Seattle...

PRAGMATIC means instead of spending 18 MILLION on a new Trolley Barn in Pioneer Square, you extend the Benson Line 7 (gasp-SEVEN) blocks to the already exsisting , 7 acre Metro Electric Trolley Barn.

PRAGMATIC means extending the same line NORTH to the New Cruise SHip Piers at Piers 90 / 91 to the 6,000 folks who transit in and out each ship day are not totally dependant on cabs, cars and under staffed bus lines.

PRAGMATIC means running streetcars up Eastlake to the University in a special lane, or on a monorail without billions spent to TUNNEL under the Ship Canal.

PRAGMATIC means instead of having spent a HALF BILLION to create a bus tunnel under 3rd, just making 3rd Avenue a Bus Only Lane like they did in Vancouver BC and Portland... We now make it a bus only lane 8 hours a day... confusing drivers, and making it impossible to synch the lights for faster service...

PRAGMATIC. I wish our city would try it sometime...

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