Origins
The effort to extend the monorail began in 1997 with the 53% to 47% passage of Initiative 41 by Seattle voters. The initiative proposed a 54-mile (87 km) X-shaped monorail plan extending the existing 1.4-mile (2.3 km) Seattle Monorail to the four corners of the city, while creating an agency, the Elevated Transportation Corporation (ETC), to build and operate the monorail, under the assumption private entrepreneurs would come forward to fund and construct the system.
The ETC was able to quickly determine that private entrepreneurs were not going to build a monorail system without public financial support, leading to a second monorail initiative, allowing the ETC to spend $6 million for additional studies to determine an improved monorail plan with full cost estimates and a funding package to pay for construction. This initiative passed 56% to 44% in 2000.
By 2002, the ETC had developed the five-line system plan that came to be called the Seattle Monorail Project. This proposal was put before the voters as Citizens Petition #1 in November 2002 which would proposed to dissolve the ETC, create a new monorail agency, construct the Green Line as the first part of the system, and enact an annual 1.4% motor-vehicle excise tax (MVET) on Seattle vehicles to fund the project.
The 2002 petition drew opposition from groups who argued that: the Green Line ridership would not be significantly different from that already achieved by Metro buses; that building an elevated line with 7-foot (2.1 m) deep concrete beams on Second Avenue in downtown would create a "wall" through the urban core; and that the monorail line should be built along the I-5 freeway corridor, among other complaints.
Reflecting the increased opposition, Citizens Petition #1 passed by just 877 votes, 50.2% to 49.7%. With this November 2002 passage, construction was expected to begin in autumn 2005, and be completed in 2009.
Just two years later in November 2004, a recall initiative, I-83, was put forth seeking to halt the project by forcing the city to deny the monorail agency the right to use the air space above public city streets. This fourth initiative in seven years proved unpopular with Seattle voters however, and lost 64% to 36%.
Read more about this topic: Seattle Monorail Project
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