Take the El Train...Please

It turns out that there are limits to the ability of politicians to suffer embarrassment over their toy trains:

In response to growing public alarm over a proposed 50-year tax, the Seattle Monorail Project's governing board last night abandoned its own finance plan, effectively putting the effort in limbo.

Several members sounded contrite as they promised to look for an alternative.

Until yesterday, Executive Director Joel Horn and some board members were praising a plan that would have totaled $11.4 billion in principal-and-interest payments for a $2.1 billion line from Ballard to West Seattle. The agency is being squeezed by the combination of a 30 percent shortage in its income from a car-tab tax, and a 20 percent increase in costs.