Monorail debate raises 69,000-rider question

As a $1.7 billion monorail plan glides toward a November vote in Seattle, advocates are telling the public the proposed Green Line will handle a hefty 69,000 trips a day.

That estimate, however, is based as much on speculation as on science.

The boldest assumption of the Elevated Transit Co. (ETC), the organization that put the plan together, is that nearly 30,000 trips a day would be two-part commutes that combine a short bus ride with a longer ride on the monorail, at a higher fare than today's express buses. Some Metro Transit officials wonder if they can provide the needed fleet of coaches to circulate through the neighborhoods to feed the monorail.

On the other hand, monorail activists have left out or estimated conservatively on other issues that could have boosted their numbers. People might buy more Mariners baseball or Bumbershoot festival tickets than they do now because they could arrive comfortably by monorail. The Green Line would be highly suitable for bike-and-ride use. And commuters might flock to stations in West Seattle if the seismically fragile Alaskan Way Viaduct is red-tagged or closed for rebuilding.

And monorail proponents downplay the combustible issue of housing density to avoid the risk of a backlash from neighbors who prefer a quieter lifestyle. Placing high-rise villages around stations is a surefire way to boost transit use, but ETC officials say they can meet their goals within existing neighborhood plans.

The Green Line's target ridership of 69,000 daily riders by 2020 is equivalent to three lanes of traffic on the Mercer Island Floating Bridge or a sellout crowd at Seahawks Stadium. It is an ambitious number, surpassing 15 of 19 light-rail systems in the country, as well as the 42,500 trips predicted for Sound Transit's initial light-rail line between downtown Seattle and Tukwila.

"You guys in Seattle are breaking records for inexplicable transportation policies," said Wendell Cox, a former Los Angeles transit official turned anti-rail consultant. "No line carries 60,000 people a day, no new line."

Bound for the ballot The Seattle monorail proposal headed for the Nov. 5 ballot calls for a 14-mile line connecting Ballard, downtown and West Seattle, to be completed by 2009 at a cost of $1.7 billion. It would be funded by a new vehicle-excise tax of $140 per $10,000 of value, to last about 25 years. The tax would be collected only within the city.

But Dick Falkenbury, the cab driver who founded the grass-roots monorail movement seven years ago, calls the numbers low.

"I think you're going to have more than 100,000 people a day. Our problem is not going to be too few riders, it's going to be too many," he said.

The ETC ridership estimates have not been independently audited, but John Niles, a local transportation and management consultant who examined the report last week, calls the monorail studies "very credible," though he believes frequent bus service, transit-only lanes and special signaling would achieve more for the money.

Here is a look at some of the ridership issues:

• Most monorail riders would be diverted from existing buses.

A ridership study by the international firm URS projected that the monorail would handle an average of 59,800 commuter trips a day in 2020 — a figure the ETC recently adjusted downward to 57,000.

By adding 12,000 more tourist and event-related trips, the ETC reached its 69,000 total.

Of the commuter trips, URS expects that only 18 percent, or 10,260 boardings, would be made by newcomers to public transit, while 82 percent would be existing users diverted from express buses. Half the event riders and tourists would be new transit users.

Henry Aronson, co-treasurer of Citizens Against Monorail, said spending $1.7 billion for the Green Line is a costly way to lure relatively few new transit riders: "You could buy each (new) rider a bus," he quipped.

Advocates reply that it's unrealistic to expect any single project to solve regional traffic problems. The monorail would be 100 percent reliable, they add, and as such would attract even more riders than forecast.

• The monorail plan would force many riders to take a two-part trip on bus and monorail.

The URS report assumes all Metro express routes from West Seattle, as well as the main Ballard-to-downtown lines, would be truncated at monorail stations, forcing half the expected commuters to transfer. But whenever transit riders have to change vehicles, total use drops, experts say.

"Access, speed, frequency. If you don't have all three, there's no reason to ride," said Mark Hallenbeck, director of the Washington State Transportation Center at the University of Washington.

To overcome that problem, the URS study calls for frequent feeder buses in West Seattle to Green Line stations every 7-½ minutes during rush hours. In Ballard, east-west feeder buses would arrive every 15 minutes at hubs such as Northwest Market Street, and another bus would circulate from Northgate to Crown Hill.

Monorail trains would run four minutes apart. Once aboard, a Green Line rider from either end of the line would arrive downtown in 16-½ minutes.

The monorail would be a half-hour quicker than a morning express bus from Ballard, the study says, while afternoon trips to West Seattle would be four minutes faster than an express bus.

The monorail also would allow typical transit users to leave home later because they would not have to allow for the risk of a bus getting stuck in traffic, says Peter Sherwin, co-chairman for the pro-monorail campaign.

• The feeder bus service might not materialize.

ETC executive director Harold Robertson has said in public forums that scrapping Metro buses to downtown would free up thousands of hours of service for the rest of the city.

A top Metro official doubts that.

"They assumed a pretty aggressive feeder-bus system," said Jim Jacobson, deputy general manager. "What they modeled is more than what we can afford to provide. ... Nobody should be thinking that bus routes that feed this will all of a sudden be running every five to 10 minutes."

The challenge is illustrated at the southernmost station, Morgan Junction, where the report says 3,182 riders each afternoon would disembark — and three-fourths of them would take buses from there. That's enough people to fill 40 buses fanning out to residential areas or to the dock of the Vashon Island ferry.

Even Falkenbury doesn't believe that many people would use the Morgan Junction station, but he thinks other stations will beat expectations. Metro will adapt to meet public demand, he said.

The farebox could turn into another drag on ridership. One ETC scenario would require bus-to-monorail commuters to pay an additional 75 cents to transfer onto the Green Line. Monorail-only users would pay $1.50.

Mike Mariano, the ETC's technical director, trimmed the URS commuter estimate from 59,800 to 57,000 last month, figuring some people would not pay a transfer fare. Which raises the question: Why spend $1.7 billion in taxpayer dollars on a system and then discourage users by charging an extra 75 cents?

Monorail officials say they'll negotiate fare policies with Metro.

Falkenbury contends that revenues from vending machines and cafes at the 19 stations and from advertising will eliminate the need for surcharges on bus-to-monorail passengers.

• The ETC's estimates on tourist and event riders may be low.

The estimate that 12,000 event attendees, sports fans and tourists would ride each day, on average, is based on a review by the Transpo Group of Kirkland, which was paid only $5,000 and spent 30 to 40 hours on what it calls a "qualitative estimate."

But the estimate looks low.

For instance, it predicts only 10,800 trips by shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving — fewer than half the number who already patronize the historic one-mile Seattle Center Monorail.

And the Bumbershoot estimate amounts to only one-fourth to one-half of the 23,000 or so daily riders the present Monorail carries.

The plan assumes that the Green Line would attract all the existing line's passengers. In other words, the 1962 Monorail would become a relic.

Estimates for Mariners games are more debatable.

Between 5 and 14 percent of fans would take the Green Line, the report says. The high figure is based on a 12 percent elevated-train share for Chicago White Sox games. Seattle Metro's baseball express buses from Northgate carry about 1 percent of fans; total bus use to Safeco Field is 4 percent.

ETC officials say the monorail will outperform buses that sit in game-day traffic, while the phenomenon of $20 parking spaces would be a strong incentive to take the Green Line from South Lander Street, Seattle Center or beyond.

• Monorail trains must run standing-room-only.

Jeffrey Ochsner, a University of Washington architecture professor who has worked in transit planning, questions whether monorail trains could carry 69,000 people a day at the stated frequency of runs.

"You have to run standing-room-only all day long to meet the numbers. Does that sound reasonable?" Ochsner asked.

ETC researcher Joel Horn replies that the trains most likely to be purchased, with capacities of 224 riders, are sufficiently roomy even though there are only 84 seats. After ballgames, the trains would run two minutes apart to handle surges, he said.

"Absolutely, we will have standees. We see that as a positive. You just get better efficiency by having people standing," he said. "The (operating) cost per ride goes down."

• Higher population densities mean more riders.

A Seattle Times map shows that one out of six city residents lives in a U.S. Census "block group" where at least some homes are within walking distance — seven blocks — of a proposed monorail station. For homes on the fringes of this corridor, walking distances or hills begin to present obstacles.

The route also runs near or through 11 official "urban villages," where the city expects to accommodate 43,000 more housing units by 2014.

Walk-up traffic is crucial because the monorail plan includes only a few hundred park-and-ride spaces and $25 million for garages or drop-off sites for people arriving in automobiles.

Rail-transit proponents say one advantage is that developers could build around the stations.

Metropolitan King County Councilman Dwight Pelz, whose Southeast Seattle district would be served by Sound Transit's line, says the point of rail transit is to create urban communities.

"The billion and a half dollars to replace a couple of bus routes and make it easier for a few commuters to go to work, that's not why you build rail. I'm a believer in rail because it can shape our city 20, 30 or 40 years from now," he said.

City Councilwoman Jan Drago believes the ridership numbers are not a make-or-break issue, considering that a monorail would last a half-century, that it would influence land use and the city will evolve.

"If we look 50 years from now, downtown Bellevue is going to look like downtown Seattle and downtown Seattle is going to look like downtown San Francisco... ," said Drago.

The bottom line, she said, is that she doesn't want future generations to be debating transit when they could be riding a monorail.

Mike Lindblom: 206-515-5631 or mlindblom@seattletimes.com. Seattle Times reporter Cheryl Phillips contributed to this report.