CITIZEN SUPPORT KEY TO THE SUCCESS OF THE SEATTLE MONORAIL PROJECT

摘要

The City of Seattle is known for its citizen process. For any civic project to become a reality, Seattle citizens must be engaged and supportive. Many projects with community-minded goals have been "killed" because they have not realized the strength of community opinion. The Seattle Monorail Project (SMP) is the current, high-profile Seattle civic project in the planning and design stage. Its current success is due not so much to the wise design and engineering concepts or the local need to move people with transit, but to the support of Seattle citizens. The Elevated Transportation Company (ETC) Board and its successor, the SMP Board, placed first priority on gaining the support of the "people". From its inception, the SMP has been a "peoples' project," and it continues to be that today. Even when the Seattle City Council wanted the project to die, the people brought it back with a referendum vote and indirectly forced the Seattle Council to embrace it. The SMP team has placed top priority on reaching out to the citizens of Seattle not only to inform them, but also to positively accept their input and blend it into the "Monorail Plan". This effort has resulted in a better Plan and one that has the strong, continuing support of the Seattle citizens. This paper briefly reviews the history and development of the SMP and illustrates examples of how and why the project continues to be a "grassroots" one.