Monorail Survey Hints at Potential Improvements

Artist rendering of new Westlake Monorail Station

Seattle Center and the Seattle Monorail have a survey in the field:

With plans underway for renovating KeyArena and bringing a new NHL hockey franchise to Seattle, Seattle Center and Seattle Monorail Services are planning ahead by exploring how to make it easier to use the monorail to travel to and from Seattle Center and connect to Link Light Rail.

With One Center City (possibly?) on the horizon and an NHL franchise looking likely at a rebuilt Key Arena, many people are looking to Seattle's oldest grade-separate transit system, the 1962 World's Fair Monorail, to evolve from a tourist curiosity to a legitimate piece of transit infrastructure.

Key Arena will re-open in the early 2020s, but the arena's light rail station won't open until the mid-2030s. That leaves a 10-15 year gap of concerts and sporting events that could benefit from improved mobility.

ORCA support (which we advocated for), the bare minimum for integration into the transit network, is coming in "spring of 2019." Improved access to the station and a re-design to allow direct access from the street (as opposed to the Westlake Center Food Court) are also under consideration:

@SeattleMonorail study (1/2):
The medium cost option would allow for 6,000 people an hour. pic.twitter.com/tC56zsRIbV

- Andrew Koved (@Andrew_Koved) March 14, 2018

A Bell St. station and a doubling of frequency (also possible, given enough funding) would be icing on the cake.

Take the survey and let the Seattle Center and Monorail folks know what you think.