Weeks said the monorail authority is close to finding new office space on Second Avenue a couple of blocks from the Bon Marché and is poised to begin hiring 40 to 45 staff members.
Beyond that, he's not exactly sure what will happen next.
"One of the great challenges is choosing which of many things to do first," Weeks said last week in a West Seattle coffee shop.
He conceded, however, that a major step would be figuring out how the monorail will get through or around the Seattle Center, a question purposely left up in the air until after the vote.
"That will probably be the most significant route issue that's not resolved yet," Weeks said.
One thing that will help goose the process along is a $20 million loan for the monorail recently approved by the Seattle City Council.
The loan money will be available Jan. 1, but the 1.4-percent motor vehicle excise tax approved for funding the $1.755 billion system won't kick in for "four or five or six months," Weeks said. "The Department of Licensing doesn't believe they have the technical capability to implement it that quickly."
The monorail authority has already selected a financial company to sell bonds to finance the project, he said.
"We want to float the bonds in the first quarter of 2003."
Weeks also said this is a good time to sell bonds because interest rates are at historically low levels - and significantly lower than the interest rate in the voter-approved financial plan. He added that every interest point less than the original one would reduce financing costs by around $100 million.
Guiding principles
Guiding all of the decision-making will be three clear goals, according to Weeks.
"The first of those is coming in on time," he said, adding that at least part of the system will be up and running by 2007, with the full 14-mile route expected to be in operation by 2009.
The second objective is completing the project under budget, Weeks said.
"We think we can do it."
To back up that contention, he points to "three significant levels" of independent review, one of which came from a consultant hired by Mayor Greg Nickels' office. The reviews all concluded the initial cost estimates were realistic, Weeks said.
He said the monorail authority has already issued a request for proposals for a lead architectural and design firm for the project. Weeks added that the search will be nationwide, but he said a priority would be choosing a company that understands Seattle sensibilities.
"We'll have bids in for [building] the whole 14-mile system by early summer or late fall," Weeks said.
He stressed that the builder will operate under a "design-build contract," an arrangement that guarantees a maximum cost for the project. "It's a big insurance policy for taxpayers."
The third goal is to develop a monorail system that will at least break even and won't need subsidies, Weeks said. He noted that both the existing Seattle monorail and the Sky Train in Vancouver, British Columbia, make a profit. "So we think it can be done."
Getting the community involved
The organization has also sent out a request for proposals seeking companies to take the initial lead in the community-involvement process, Weeks said.
"We want to stay with the grass-roots tradition."
The route will be divided into separate sections, and outreach teams will be assigned to deal with each, he said. Weeks estimates there will be six teams, and, while the final boundaries haven't been determined yet, he has a rough idea of the areas they will cover.
They include from the Ship Canal to the north, the Ship Canal to the Seattle Center, the Seattle Center to Westlake Mall, the Westlake Mall to the King Street Station along Second Avenue, the King Street Station to the West Seattle Bridge, and the West Seattle Bridge to West Seattle, he said.
Each team will know everything about their individual sections, including the locations of stations and placement of individual columns, and the teams will begin holding public meetings in January, Weeks said.
"We'll need to have everyone at the table," he added.
In the case of the Seattle Center route, getting everyone to the table means not only public and community organizations such as the Uptown Alliance, but also the Seattle Center itself, the Space Needle, Paul Allen's Experience Music Project, the Opera House (being rebuilt as Marion Oliver McCaw Hall) and Seattle Children's Theatre, Weeks said of a few examples.
The original plan routes the monorail to the north of the Seattle Center along Mercer Street, but a late-breaking development calls for shooting the monorail straight across the Seattle Center grounds.
"Most of the players said it made more sense to go around north of the Center on Mercer," Weeks said. "And then we heard from some of the key constituencies and had a letter from the mayor late in the process ...."
The mayor and key stakeholders such as Paul Allen urged the monorail organization to wait until after the vote to make the call on the Seattle Center route, Weeks added.
The idea was that more time was needed to make the right decision, he said. "So we committed to a new process."
Also needing to be resolved are the number of stations near the Seattle Center, along with the fate of the existing monorail, which could end up being declared a historical monument.
"If it's declared historic, is it the cars, the columns, the beams, the stations?" Weeks wondered. "What exactly is historic and what are the rules about what needs to be preserved?"
Weeks said his position is that the historical problem is taken care of because the new monorail will travel along the historic route.
One proposal also would add a third rail to the new monorail so that the line could include the route through the EMP and stations at the Seattle Center and at the Westlake Mall, he noted.
Weeks hopes the Seattle Center route decision will be made in the first quarter of 2002.
City and Metro factors
The Seattle City Council also will be a major player in the monorail project.
"The City Council still has not decided formally what structure they're going to use," Weeks said.
"There will be a large number of issues with the City Council," he added, mentioning the relocation of utilities, using current street rights-of-way and the use of large amounts of power as a few of the issues.
"They have a responsibility to ask us some tough questions, [and] I think they will continue to do that," Weeks said.
The issue of making Metro bus connections to the monorail stations and how fare structures for the two systems will be combined also looms in the future. Weeks doesn't sound worried, though.
He notes the monorail won't be open for service until 2007. "So there's a few years left to negotiate these things."
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