The Seattle Monorail Project was a proposed five-line monorail system to be constructed in Seattle, Washington, US, as an extension of the existing Seattle Center Monorail. The , 17 station Green Line running from Ballard to West Seattle via Seattle Center would have been the first of the five lines to be built. From 1997 to 2005 the monorail project was a highly contentious political issue in the Seattle area. In November 2005, following the fifth voter initiative on the monorail in eight years, the monorail authority agreed to dissolve itself after having spent $124.7 million in taxpayer funds without beginning any monorail construction. History Initiative 41 and ETC The effort to extend the monorail began in 1997 with Initiative 41, passed by a 53%–47% vote by Seattle citizens. The initiative proposed a X-shaped monorail system extending the line constructed for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. The system's construction and operation was to be carried out by a new agency, the Elevated Transportation Corporation (ETC), using private funding. The ETC quickly determined that private entrepreneurs could not build a monorail system without public financial support, leading to a second monorail referendum placed before voters as Initiative 53 in 2000, which would allow 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. I-53 passed 56% to 44% in 2000. Five-line plan 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 propose 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 advanced the following arguments: Green Line ridership would not be significantly different from that already achieved by Metro buses Building an elevated line with deep concrete beams on Second Avenue in downtown would create a "wall" through the urban core The monorail line should be built along the I-5 freeway corridor, among other complaints. Reflecting the increased opposition, Citizens Petition #1 narrowly passed in November 2002 by just 877 votes, 50.2% to 49.7%. With the passage of CP-1, construction was scheduled to