Approximately 25 miles (40 km) long, it connects the city of Seattle to the northeastern suburbs of Kenmore, Bothell, Woodinville, and Monroe.

The present-day route of SR 522 was built in stages between 1907 and 1965, beginning with the Red Brick Road from Seattle to Bothell, then part of the Pacific Highway and later US 99.

A branch of the Stevens Pass Highway was built to connect PSH 2 in Bothell and Monroe in 1965, and was incorporated into SR 202 after it was designated in 1964.

Since the late 1990s, the SR 522 corridor between Woodinville and Monroe has been partially converted to a freeway to address safety concerns and a growing population.

Portions of the highway near Woodinville and Monroe were widened between 2001 and 2014, while other sections near Maltby remain two lanes wide and undivided, with improvement projects left unfunded.

[3] Lake City Way continues northeast through Maple Leaf as a four-lane arterial street before turning north on its approach to Thornton Creek.

[12] It continues through several sharp turns that follow the Eastside Rail Corridor,[13] a former railroad grade that runs northeasterly through the predominantly rural area near Grace.

SR 522 travels northeast from Maltby, intersecting Echo Lake Road in a single-point urban interchange, and crosses the Snohomish River into Monroe.

[27][34][35] In 1922, the original road alignment through modern-day Lake City was bypassed by the new, concrete-paved Victory Way, dedicated in the memory of World War I veterans.

[52] The King County government also unsuccessfully lobbied in the early 1950s for a 23-mile (37 km) highway connecting Duvall to Skykomish along the Tolt River as an alternative to the Monroe cutoff.

[73] Since the 1980s, population growth in Monroe and around the SR 522 has resulted in increased traffic congestion and safety issues, including a rise in accidents and crashes.

[78] The 1994 supplemental transportation budget included $2 million for engineering studies on SR 522, with construction of a four-lane freeway funded through other means.

[79] State lawmakers recommended tolling SR 522 to pay off construction bonds,[80] but the plan was shelved after opposition from local residents.

[74] Existing state funds were used for the first stages of the SR 522 corridor project, including the addition of median rumble strips and improved pavement markers in 1995, which helped reduce head-on collisions.

[85] The third stage of the SR 522 corridor project was completed in 2014, widening the highway to four lanes across the Snohomish River and through Monroe to US 2, where a new eastbound offramp was also constructed separately in 2012.

[87] A separate project to build a new intersection with flyover ramps at the south end of the University of Washington Bothell campus was completed in 2009 at a cost of $52.3 million.

[89] The remaining stages of the SR 522 corridor project between Maltby and the Snohomish River were planned to be funded by the Roads and Transit ballot measure in 2007, before it was rejected by local voters.

[90][91] The preliminary design options for the future diamond interchange would place the main ramps at either SR 524 or Paradise Lake Road.

[92] A coalition of politician and business leaders named "Finish522" was formed in 2018 to lobby the state government for barriers and complete grade separation in the wake of several fatal crashes in the mid-2010s.

[93][94] Long-term plans from WSDOT to address increasing traffic congestion in downtown Monroe include the construction of a highway bypass for US 2 to the north of the city.