Seattle has one operating monorail line and another will be built soon, and there are other lines proposed for the region. The effort on this page is to list the projects, give a brief description, and to provide a link whenever possible to the official site of the project.

The Seattle Center Monorail

In 1962 Seattle hosted a world’s fair and one of the features of the fair was a monorail line that went for about a mile from Downtown Seattle to the World’s Fair Site. The monorail was designed and built by the Alweg company of Germany.

Since that time, the fair site has been converted into the Seattle Center, the Alweg company has gone out of business, but the monorail still operates at a profit.

Link to the Seattle Center Monorail web site.
Link to the Seattle Center web site.

The Seattle Monorail Project

In November 2002, the voters of Seattle narrowly passed a ballot issue authorizing construction of a new monorail line, to be called the “Green Line”. This would have been the first of five monorail routes proposed for the City of Seattle.

The ballot issue also created a new governmental agency called the Seattle Popular Monorail Authority (SPMA), now operating under the name of The Seattle Monorail Project. This agency would oversee the design and construction of the Green Line and begin planning for a new line.

Unfortunately, in the election of 8 November 2005, the Seattle Monorail Project was cancelled.

Link to the Seattle Monorail Project’s web site.
Link to my summary of the Seattle Monorail Project

The Freeway Monorail

One group had proposed a monorail system that primarily follows existing freeways. Their argument is that the right-of-ways already exist and it would cost less than building monorails elsewhere.

Link to the Freeway Monorail web site.

The King County Monorail

Citizens for King County Monorail propose a monorail system that would connect Seattle to cities on the east side of Lake Washington, south of Seattle, and to each other.

One route would go from Northgate in Seattle to Bothell, probably via Lake City and Bothell Way. A second route would go south from Bothell to Bellevue and Renton, then west past Southcenter to SeaTac Airport, then south to Federal Way. A third route would roughly follow highway 520 from Seattle to Redmond.

Future routes could go from north Seattle to Lynnwood via Shoreline and Edmonds, from Bothell to Lynnwood, and from Federal Way to Tacoma.

If the group is successful in collecting enough signatures on petitions, there will be an election asking voters to authorize a commission to study the possibility of building a monorail, and their proposal would be put before the voters in two more years. This follows the pattern that resulted in Seattle voters approving the Seattle Monorail Project.

Link to the web site for Citizens for King County Monorail.