ALEX MARSHALL: Traveling —- driving down an open road, rolling on steel rails, soaring in the sky —- is romantic. Constructing the means to travel —-building a highway, a train line or an airport —- generally isn’t.
Which is why the new Seattle monorail project, set to begin construction this fall, is so interesting. It is a rare thing: a populist piece of infrastructure. Over the heads of the planners, the politicians and the business leaders, Seattle residents have come up with a plan, designed a system and then funded it — in three separate referendums. It’s an amazing act of civic chutzpah. The project’s eventual success or failure bears watching, because it raises the question of whether citizens can play the game of infrastructure development more directly, and not just give thumbs up or down to what the experts come up with.
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