The question of how to pay for a Green Line Light Rail needs more thought than just adding taxes. Your recent essay (editorial, May 2) on the subject suggested buses are fine but light rail would be faster.

That is far too simplistic.

Buses are necessary now but have four serious problems: (1) They are very labor intensive which makes them very costly. For each dollar of fare a Seattle rider pays the taxpayers must pay $4. That is grossly inefficient, light rail should, if done well, cut that cost in half. (2) Buses need oil which is getting very expensive and may diminish in supply. How much American cash do we wish to hand over to Arab Muslims?

Seattle knows that buses can be run by electricity but only on busy routes not on freeways. (3) Buses add to air pollution at least a little bit. (4) Buses suffer double the casualty rate of light rail.

Paying for light rail can best be accomplished by capitalizing on the future savings to be achieved. Let us assume light rail might replace 200 buses, which cost $66 million a year to operate. Light rail could move those same people, if aligned along logical routes for $44 million and would attract $7 million more fare revenue annually based on past experience. That sets up a cash flow improvement of $29 million a year. That, in turn, will support the sale of $300 million in bonds that in turn will support $30 million in federal matching money, or $1.2 billion if the 80 percent federal share in the law is recognized, President Bush has ignored the law and cut rail funding to 50 percent but he will be out in less than two years. Patty Murray may be able to get the law enforced.

I realize that the Green Line monorail may have soured Seattle on bonds but bonds are a legal and viable method of funding worthy projects run by honest people.

Claiming monorail would make a profit was possibly honest but if so it was delusionary. Look at Las Vegas. Virginia Railway Express runs commuter trains like Sounder, I fact, they use some leased Sounder trains. People love them. Virginia Railway Express was set up in 1992 by selling transit revenue bonds with no federal aid.

I was invited to Seattle by former Mayor Dorm Braman to boost the rapid transit vote in 1962. If I remember right and I am not sure I do, that vote won a majority but opponents required it to win a super majority, which it did not, I was invited back to support the vote a decade ago which won. Dorm Braman was a really good man and a really good mayor,

Ed Tennyson

Registered Professional Engineer