The Seattle Center Monorail is an elevated straddle-beam monorail line in Seattle, Washington, United States. The nearly mile-long (1.4 km) monorail runs mostly along 5th Avenue between 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 was constructed in eight months for the 1962 world's fair, hosted at Seattle Center, and opened on March 24, 1962. The system retains its original fleet of two Alweg trains, each capable of carrying 450 people. The monorail's southern terminus was moved into Westlake Center in 1988 and the rest of the system was designated a historic landmark in 2003. The system remains under the ownership of the city government and is operated by a private company. Plans to expand the monorail's service area have been rejected or shelved several times since the 1960s. (Full article...)