Seattle Center Monorail
The Seattle Center Monorail is an elevated straddle-beam monorail line in Seattle, Washington, United States. The monorail runs along 5th Avenue between the Seattle Center and Westlake Center in Downtown Seattle, making no intermediate stops. The monorail is a major tourist attraction but also operates as a regular public transit service with trains every ten minutes running for up to 16 hours per day. It usually operates with one train per track, and the entire trip takes approximately two minutes. In 2023, the monorail carried 2.1 million total passengers; it regularly earns a profit that is split between the contractor and the city government.
The monorail was constructed in eight months at a cost of $4.2 million for the 1962 Century 21 Exposition, a world's fair hosted at the Seattle Center. It underwent major renovations in 1988 after the southern terminal was moved from its location over Pine Street to inside the Westlake Center shopping mall. The system retains its original fleet of two Alweg trains from the world's fair; each carries up to 450 people. It was the second daily operating monorail in the United States, preceded by the Disneyland Monorail in 1959, also developed by Alweg. It is owned by the city government, which designated the tracks and trains as a historic landmark in 2003. A private contractor has operated the system since 1994, when it replaced King County Metro, the county's public transit system.
Several government agencies and private companies have proposed expansions to the monorail system since its inception in the 1960s. The most prominent was the Seattle Monorail Project, founded by a 1997 ballot initiative to build a citywide network that would expand coverage beyond the planned Link light rail system. The project ran into financial difficulties, including cost estimates rising to $11 billion, before being cancelled by a city vote in 2005. Several major accidents have occurred during the system's half-century in service, including a train-to-train collision in 2005 on a gauntlet track near the Westlake Center terminal.
Route and stations
The monorail begins at a terminal at the Seattle Center, a civic complex and park northwest of Downtown Seattle. The Seattle Center terminal is located at the Next 50 Plaza near the center of the complex, adjacent to the Space Needle, Chihuly Garden and Glass, and Memorial Stadium. It is elevated above the south end of the plaza and consists of three platforms arranged in the Spanish solution: two side platforms for alighting and a center platform for boarding. The monorail trains' maintenance facility is below the platforms at ground level in the Seattle Center station. From the terminal, the tracks travel east and begin a wide turn to the south while passing through the Museum of Pop Culture, which was designed around the existing tracks.The monorail tracks cross over Broad Street and travel along the west side of 5th Avenue North for two blocks, passing the KOMO Plaza news broadcasting center. The tracks then begin a gradual southeastern turn over a small office building and auto repair shop toward 5th Avenue, which begins on the south side of Denny Way and Tilikum Place. The one-way street travels southeast through Belltown with southbound-only traffic, split into two sets of through lanes by the monorail's supporting columns. Vehicular traffic is permitted to change lanes between the monorail columns despite the visual obstructions they create.
The monorail passes by several city landmarks, including the Amazon Spheres and Westin Seattle towers, eventually reaching McGraw Square, where 5th Avenue makes a slight turn to the south. Before reaching the southern terminal at the Westlake Center shopping mall on Pine Street, the monorail's tracks narrow into a set of gauntlet tracks that are apart, preventing two trains from using the station at the same time. The Westlake Center terminal is on the third floor of the mall and has a direct elevator to street level and the Westlake tunnel station served by Link light rail trains on the 1 Line. The South Lake Union Streetcar also terminates at nearby McGraw Square, and several major bus routes run near the Westlake Center terminal.
Service and fares
The monorail takes approximately two minutes to travel between the Seattle Center and Westlake Center terminals, which are located apart. Trains depart from each terminal approximately every 10 minutes, with a single train running continuously. The service has two seasonal schedules, with trains in the autumn and winter operating for 13–14 hours per day from Monday to Saturday, ending at 11:00 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays, and 12 hours on Sundays, ending at 9:00 p.m. The summer schedule is in use from May to September and has weekday trains operating for 16 hours and weekend trains for 15 hours, with service ending at 11:00 p.m. every day. Monorail service is typically reduced on national holidays and closed entirely on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas. During special events at the Seattle Center and Climate Pledge Arena, operating hours are extended and train frequencies are increased to every four minutes by using both trains in the fleet.Fares for the monorail are paid at turnstiles at either terminal using an ORCA card, a smartphone app, or paper tickets bought from a vending machine with credit/debit cards, or mobile payments., one-way fares are $4 for adults, $2 for youths aged 6–18, and $2 for people qualifying for the reduced rate, including senior citizens 65 years and older, disabled individuals, persons with Medicare cards, and active duty members of the U.S. military carrying their identification cards. Round-trip fares are twice the price of a one-way fare; monthly passes are also offered at adult and reduced rates. Children aged five and under are able to ride free. In October 2019, the monorail began accepting ORCA cards, the regional transit payment system, after five years of negotiations and a study over fare integration; since May 2023, youth ORCA cards are charged a $0 fare on the monorail as part of a statewide program to provide free transit for riders aged 18 years or younger. The monorail's ORCA card policy was modified in January 2026 to remove a free transfer credit and instead charge a portion of the fare for users without a monthly or daily pass. Free fares have also been provided to attendees of all public events at Climate Pledge Arena through a mobile app since January 2023 after an existing program for the Seattle Kraken and Seattle Storm was expanded. Fares are adjusted by the city government and Seattle Monorail Services to cover operational costs and remain in line with consumer inflation.
Operations
A private contractor, Seattle Monorail Services, founded in 1994, and currently owned by former Port of Seattle commissioner Tom Albro, operates the Seattle Center Monorail. Before 1994, the monorail was jointly operated by the Seattle Center and King County Metro, the county's public transit agency. The monorail receives no operating funds from public sources, with costs covered by fares and federal grants for capital projects; the service is unusual among U.S. public transport systems because it makes an operating profit. The contract between SMS and the city government is renewed every ten years and includes an even split of profits between the two parties.In 2024, the Seattle Center Monorail carried approximately 2.16 million passengers, averaging 5,157 passengers on weekdays and 7,885 passengers on weekends. Following declines due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ridership rebounded in 2022 and 2023 with the opening of Climate Pledge Arena, where event tickets include free transit fares. The service generated $6.3 million in fare revenue and received under $8,000 in total capital funds from local and federal governments in 2024. During the Century 21 Exposition from March to September 1962, the monorail carried over 90 percent of World's Fair visitors and had a total ridership of 7.4 million.
Rolling stock and guideway
The straddle-beam monorail is entirely elevated and uses a series of 68 hollow support columns up to above street level. The two parallel tracks are carried on prestressed concrete beams that are approximately long, tall, and wide. Several sections use split or one-armed columns that carry one track because of a lack of space on curves; the guideway passes over one building at the intersection of Denny Way and 5th Avenue as part of a long curve in the tracks. The system's maintenance and operations base is underneath the platforms at the Seattle Center terminal.The system has two aluminum trains, named the "Blue Train" and "Red Train" for their original paint schemes, which are each assigned to a single track and travel bidirectionally. They were constructed in 1962 by Alwac International in West Germany and have remained in operation on the line since then, undergoing a major renovation in 2009 and 2010. Each train is long, wide, and tall, with articulating joints between sections. They each have 124 seats and a capacity of 450 passengers with standing room, with an estimated maximum throughput of 10,800 passengers per hour. The trains have built-in emergency ramps to transfer passengers between trains if stopped between stations.
Each train rides on a set of 64 pneumatic rubber tires arranged into eight bogies: 16 are load-bearing tires arranged in pairs on top of the beam and have a diameter of ; the remaining 48 tires are used to guide the train on the side of the beam and have a diameter of. The system was designed for automated driving, but operators control the trains using a joystick and LCD monitors that display technical information. The trains typically coast without power for the latter half of their journey and switch to dynamic brakes when approaching a station. The system uses a third rail for electrification, with 700 volts that feed eight electric motors. Originally, the trains could reach speeds of up to, but this has since been reduced to for normal operations. During severe winter weather, the trains deposit de-icing chemicals and salt on the tracks to allow for normal speeds.