Two weeks ago the City Council dropped the Monorail into limbo. By a 4-4 vote they killed an initiative to let Seattle voters decide whether or not to fund a $4 million monorail feasibility study. When it came time to assign the proposal to a committee for discussion, Richard McIver, Heidi Wills, Jan Drago, and Jim Compton voted against discussing the initiative further. Usually such proposals are assigned to committee as a matter of course.

But the monorail has had to fight an uphill battle with the city from the beginning. McIver, who is the chair of the council's transportation committee, has been instrumental in planning Sound Transit's light rail line, and Sound Transit has always viewed the monorail as a competing project that would draw resources away from light rail (not necessarily a bad thing, with the light rail system fast becoming an enormous financial sinkhole). McIver has never let an opportunity to slam the monorail pass him by. Downtown supporters like Drago, Compton, and Pageler (who didn't vote because she was on vacation) stand firmly with mayor Paul Schell in scorning the monorail as a vanity project--an embarrassing result of too much direct democracy. And Heidi Wills--well, on easy decisions (like a ban on circus animals), Heidi Wills can take a stand on principle, but when push comes to shove, she lets the establishment, pro-business types tell her what to do.

Judy Nicastro and Nick Licata had proposed the initiative in response to a lawsuit filed against the city in King County Superior Court by monorail supporters. The monorail initiative included wording that requires the city to finance the project if no private investors step in. The city has responded by playing semantic games; the initiative is "vaguely worded," say city attorneys. The relevant passage reads: "The City Council of Seattle shall make funds available ... either by issuing councilmanic revenue bonds or raising the city's business and occupation tax."

That's pretty clear. But, no, says the city, the problem is the word "shall." Evidently, no one at city hall knows the meaning of this word--and that assertion has been the sum of their defense against the lawsuit.

According to Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, the first definition of "shall" is: "will have to (MUST), will be able to (CAN)." The second definition is: "used to express a command or exhortation; used in laws, regulations, or directives to express what is mandatory."

Mandatory. Got that? Evidently King County Superior Court Judge Kathleen Learned got it; she ruled on the lawsuit last week and told the city that they had to either fund the monorail or vote to repeal the initiative. In other words, the City Council can't simply continue to ignore it or refuse to discuss it, as they did two weeks ago.

The city will probably argue that the monorail can't be built because there's no money for it. Obviously Mayor Schell and the majority on the City Council think the monorail would pull money away from the new downtown city hall building or the new downtown library or the new $200 million parks initiative or a host of other pet projects on the city's itinerary. They can use the city's money to build parking garages and they can give land subsidies to Wright Runstad (the PacMed property), but they will claim that they can't fund transit.

But even Judge Learned pointed out that the city could simply put together a funding package--a hike in the B&O tax, for example--and put it on the ballot for the voters to decide. The Mayor and the City Council have the duty to at least make an attempt.

Instead, Paul Schell has thrown several million dollars into road upgrades and his own vanity projects. On June 3rd, the mayor's office announced a 10-point Mobility Plan that would take approximately the same amount of money that would have been spent on the monorail feasibility study and put it into a large number of tiny projects, the sum of which will surely be gridlock and more gridlock forever.

For example, Schell would spend $515,000 primarily for repainting traffic lane stripes on an annual basis. Another $500,000 would go for new bicycle lanes on five arterials--a nice idea in itself, but let's be realistic. This is a city of hills and rain; only the most athletic people are going to bike to work everyday, and damn few folks take their bicycles to the grocery store.

Another $600,000 will go for "optimizing traffic signals" and adding remote video cameras to Aurora Avenue North and the Duwamish industrial area, ostensibly for drivers to check via the city's website how congested these streets are before they leave home. Someone must be joking. The website idea is clearly pork barrel. And the benefits of changing traffic lights are few; during rush hour, the problem is traffic volume, not the timing of traffic lights.

Little bits of money will go for other meaningless projects. $100,000 will be spent to give buses priority at traffic lights (how this will fit with the "optimizing traffic signals" theory is never explored). Another $50,000 will go to set up a "test" shuttle project, likely to run from the International District to First Hill and then downtown to connect with the Convention Place Station (businesses and stores on Pike and Pine Streets probably lobbied heavily for this one).

Two of the smaller projects have gotten the most favorable press: $100,000 for a project that would get people to use taxicabs instead of their own cars and explore car-sharing options, and $135,000 for a "car-free" campaign. The taxicab idea is particularly weird. No one in their right mind is going to leave their expensive car at home to take an expensive taxi to the grocery store or to school. Car-sharing is a good idea, but it needs more funding to be effective.

The "car-free" campaign is completely undefined: "A car-free campaign will offer communities cost-effective tools to reduce car trips in their neighborhoods"--and that's all it says. It's probably just another high-paying government job for the son or daughter of one of Paul Schell's buddies.

The largest single item on the list is for construction: $1 million for road and sidewalk improvements and new signal lights for the Duwamish industrial area, the U-District, and the corridor from Elliot Avenue W to 15th Avenue NW in Ballard. In other words, Paul Schell wants special attention for work the city would perform anyway as part of its annual road budget.

In addition to the 10 points listed above, the city has doubled its road budget from $3 million to $6 million this year. Clearly the city's commitment to investment in car commuter traffic is much greater than its commitment to transit funding.

There's no question that the city could fund the monorail feasibility study if it wanted to, and the city has to respond in some way to the court ruling. The issue is whether the city will eventually do what the voters have asked it to do: roll up their sleeves and make the monorail--or a monorail starter project--a priority.