Monorail Promotion
Project

by Bob Fleming

Image courtesy of the late Seattle Monorail Project

The purpose of this site is to promote construction of a monorail system in the Seattle area.

Why Monorail?

A monorail is not just a fun ride at Disneyland. Larger versions are often better than light rail for urban rapid transit. Click here for details.

Learn More!

The best source to learn about monorails is The Monorail Society. There are also some DVDs available.

We still need the Green Line, more than ever! Click here for more!

How can we get a new monorail built? Click here for more!

Other Sites of Mine

History

Seattle has one of the World’s first modern monorails. It was built for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, and still operates today as the The Seattle Center Monorail. It runs only a little over a mile from downtown Seattle to the Seattle Center, on the site of the former World’s Fair, but it is a very popular attraction and is a working example of a modern monorail. It demonstrates how monorail can be an alternative to subways or commuter railways for urban rapid transit.

In a city-wide election on 6 November 2002 the citizens of Seattle approved a new 14-mile long monorail to be built in Seattle. This line was named the Green Line, and would have been the first of several lines in a city-wide system of monorails. However, in the Summer of 2005 there were financing problems and in an election on 8 November 2005, the people voted to cancel the monorail project.

The Current Situation

The Seattle Center Monorail is operating. There is very little talk at the present about new monorail in this area.

There has been some discussion about mass transit between downtown Seattle and West Seattle, and also between downtown and Ballard, as one possible option for handling traffic during closure of the Alaskan Way Viaduct for construction of a replacement. The Alaskan Way Viaduct is a major elevated freeway along the Seattle waterfront that is old and will probably be shut down in the near future (this is currently a matter of hot debate). There has been occasional suggestion of monorail as a mass transit option.

Local Monorail News

200 PEOPLE EVACUATED FROM STALLED TRAIN (23 August 2008) — Today the Seattle Center Monorail’s Red Train stalled during a regular passenger run and approximately 200 passengers had to be evacuated. Fire Department ladder trucks evacuated most people down the ladders, and later some were evacuated over a short ramp from the Red Train to the Blue Train on the parallel beamway. Nobody was hurt although some people suffered from the heat.

The breakdown was traced to a leaking air valve that shut the train down. The part was replaced and the train was returned to service.

REBUILT BLUE TRAIN BEGINS TESTING (16 August 2008) — The Seattle Center Monorail’s Blue Train is now being tested at low speed following several months of rebuilding. Electrical components and running gear were replaced or repaired. It is hoped that the train will be carrying passengers this coming weekend.

CENTER MONORAIL REOPENS AFTER EQUIPMENT PROBLEM (10 August 2008) — The Seattle Center Monorail reopened today after an electrical problem was fixed that has kept the monorail from running since 4 August. The problem was with the red train. The blue train is currently out of service for some time for major maintenance.

MONORAIL AGENCY OFFICIALLY SHUTS DOWN (17 January 2008) — This evening the agency that was supposed to build the Green Line monorail officially shut down and went out of existence.

The agency, the Seattle Public Monorail Authority (SPMA), better known as the Seattle Monorail Project (SMP), was organized to plan and build a monorail system in Seattle. The first line, the Green Line, from West Seattle to Downtown and north to Ballard, was supposed to open in 2009. But in 2005 there was a financial crisis that resulted in a public vote to cancel the project and shut down the SPMA.

The agency has been operating with a skeleton staff to complete outstanding business and deal with lawsuits. Everything has now been finished and this evening the agency voted to finally close down.

The agency has a balance of $425,963.07 in the bank, which will be turned over to King County Metro Transit to improve bus service in the corridor that would have been served by the monorail.

My Opinions

For my ideas about possible new monorail projects in the Seattle area, please click here.

For my opinions about replacing the existing Seattle Center Monorail with a new, modern, and extended line, and for improvements to Key Arena, keeping the Sonics, and a new Monorail Museum, click here.

For my opinions regarding the recent Seattle Monorail Project demise and future possibilities, please click here.

Click here to read my opinions about the Seattle Monorail Project and other Seattle-Area monorail plans.