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Citizen Group Launches New Monorail Initiative
By Tom Herriman
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Initiative 53, which is going through the final approval process at the Board of Elections as we go to press, calls for the city to appropriate $4 million for the Elevated Transportation Company (ETC) to study and develop a monorail plan. After the study is complete, the initiative calls for a second vote of approval on ETC's recommendations on building and funding a city monorail system.
"The city has been irresponsible in not budgeting any funds for public transportation," said Peter Sherwin, one of the initiators of Initiative 53. "Our citizens and our neighborhoods need help now to cut through traffic congestion and be able to move around to all corners of the city conveniently and speedily. Many areas are not well served by busses and would not be well served by the proposed Sound Transit plans."
Sherwin is an Eastlake resident with a long history of political activism in the city. He ran a couple of city council campaigns in the '70s, and worked on City Councilmember Nick Licata's and U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee's recent campaigns.
Sherwin and attorney Cleveland Stockmeyer drafted the initiative and are putting together a volunteer fundraising organization to get it on the ballot.
The initiative organizers need to get 18,700 signatures by August 15 at which point city council would be faced with three choices: (a) approve the initiative as a new city ordinance, (b) put it on the November ballot for a public vote, (c) sit on it.
"We want them to put it on the ballot. And I'm sure they will if we can come up with the signatures," Stockmeyer said.
If city council doesn't act, or if not enough signatures are gathered by August 15, the organizers say they'll extend their campaign and raise the target to 37,000 signers, which would trigger a special election and bypass the city council.
Campaign volunteers will be asked to gather signatures and to post petitions on clipboards in neighborhood cafes and stores. "Everyone in the city should be able to sign petitions, or pick up blank petitions within a few blocks of where they live, " Sherwin said.
The campaign will depend on the Internet as well as volunteers and footwork to get signatures.
Stockmeyer said the initiative is aimed at forcing the city council to act. "The last straw was their response to Judge Learned's ruling to either kill or fund the Monorail. Instead of acting responsibly, they cut off the phone service for ETC, the organization that was created to carry out the original monorail initiative which was approved by 53 percent of the voters in 1997."
"We have to make a choice now," said Sherwin. "The city council is perfectly willing to spend millions from its bonding authority to build parking garages, performance halls and a new grandiose city hall. But they are not putting a nickel into public transit. We think that has to change."
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| Anonymous | Feb 09, 2003 | monorail | |
| Seattle can not isolate itself to solve the horrendous traffic congestion in central puget sound, which need an i ntegrated PUGET SOUND REGIONAL MONORAIL MASTER PLAN as proposed for the Puget Sound Regional Council by the The Urbanaut Company Monorail on January 6,03. The Urbanaut is a superior monorail in vertual every single as well as an overall comparison with the 50 year old Alweg Technology (bombardier and Hitatchi) as being promoted by SPMA. For info. search on the website under "Urbanaut Monorail " promoted by SPMA | |||
