Flanked by Seat­tle May­or Ed Mur­ray and new Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff, King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine announced today at a media event on Capi­tol Hill that Sound Tran­sit’s Uni­ver­si­ty Link light rail exten­sion, which has been in the con­struc­tion phase for the last few years, will have its pub­lic grand open­ing on Sat­ur­day, March 19th, 2016, at 10 AM in the morn­ing.

“Uni­ver­si­ty Link opens March 19th, chang­ing for­ev­er how we move around Seat­tle,” said Con­stan­tine in a news release dis­trib­uted at the event. “With fast, fre­quent trains bypass­ing some of the region’s worst traf­fic, thou­sands of peo­ple will now be able to get to work, school and appoint­ments on time, every time.”

Uni­ver­si­ty Link was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled to open in the autumn of 2016, but because con­struc­tion went so smooth­ly, it is open­ing ahead of sched­ule and under bud­get. Much of the pro­jec­t’s cost was tak­en care of by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, thanks to appro­pri­a­tions secured by Unit­ed States Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray.

“As the Puget Sound region con­tin­ues to grow, we need to make trans­porta­tion invest­ments that make our com­mu­ni­ties more liv­able, cre­ate jobs, improve access to edu­ca­tion cen­ters, and sup­port our local small busi­ness­es,” Mur­ray said. “That’s why I am so thrilled to see Sound Tran­sit reach this mile­stone on this impor­tant project for com­muters and com­mu­ni­ties, and it’s why I am going to keep fight­ing for local invest­ments like these that help our econ­o­my grow from the mid­dle out.”

Uni­ver­si­ty Link extends light rail north from West­lake to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton (Map: Sound Transit)

The 3.15 mile Uni­ver­si­ty Link exten­sion adds two new sta­tions to Puget Sound’s light rail spine.

One is on Capi­tol Hill, near Cal Ander­son Park, with mul­ti­ple sta­tion entrances. The oth­er is adja­cent to Husky Sta­di­um and Hec Ed at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Washington.

Uni­ver­si­ty Link is com­plete­ly under­ground, run­ning in its own right of way, so the expe­ri­ence of rid­ing it will be some­what sim­i­lar to a sub­way. No mat­ter what the weath­er or the traf­fic is, it will be pos­si­ble to move between West­lake Cen­ter and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in sev­en to eight minutes.

That’s going to be huge.

Metro and Sound Tran­sit plan a series of major changes to bus routes and sched­ules one week after Uni­ver­si­ty Link opens (on March 26th), to ensure that bus ser­vice bet­ter com­ple­ments the new­ly extend­ed light rail spine.

At today’s event on Capi­tol Hill, Con­stan­tine and Mur­ray unveiled a spe­cial clock that is count­ing down the days, hours, min­utes, and sec­onds until U Link opens. There are many fes­tiv­i­ties plan­ning for Open­ing Day, as Sound Tran­sit explains:

We’re kick­ing off U Link ser­vice with a free com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­bra­tion that includes music, per­for­mance art, com­mu­ni­ty booths and more.  From 9 AM to 5 PM on March 19, we’re host­ing a tail­gate par­ty at Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Sta­tion and a street fes­ti­val at Capi­tol Hill Sta­tion – with light rail serv­ing as your link to both. Sta­tions open and train ser­vice begins at 10 AM. Sub­scribe to U Link Updates to get the lat­est details on our Launch Day lineup.

If you would like to be among the first to ride U Link on Open­ing Day, you can enter to win a spe­cial “Gold­en Tick­et” from Sound Transit:

Here are the ways to enter and win (you must be 18 or older):

Fol­low @SoundTransit on Face­book, Twit­ter or Insta­gram. Take a pho­to or video let­ting us know where you will Link in 2016. Share using #Ulink2016 @SoundTransit.

Lis­ten to these radio sta­tions: KEXP (90.3 FM); KUOW (94.9 FM); KNDD (107.7 FM) and KNHC (C 89.5 FM) for your chance to win two Gold­en Tickets.

Sub­scribe for U Link updates. Sub­scribers will also receive updates about spe­cial U Link Launch Day events and promotions.

Stop by any of these U Dis­trict or Roo­sevelt busi­ness­es, spend $5 or more and fill out an “enter to win” Gold­en Tick­et raf­fle card (begins Jan­u­ary 29). Par­tic­i­pat­ing busi­ness­es include: Brook­lyn Avenue Den­tal, Cedars of Lebanon, My Favorite Deli, Nasai Teriya­ki, Nep­tune Music Com­pa­ny, Samir’s Mediter­ranean Grill, Sweet Alche­my (opens Feb­ru­ary), Ugly Mug Café, Health Mutt, Nature Nails, Pies and Pints, Roo­sevelt Vac­u­um, Sub­way (Roo­sevelt Square), Teddy’s, Thrive, Toron­a­do, UPS Store on 65th.

Vis­it Rules & reg­u­la­tions for more details.

We will be bring­ing you full live cov­er­age of Uni­ver­si­ty Link Open­ing Day on March 19th, as we did in 2009 when Cen­tral Link and Air­port Link opened to the public.

The com­ple­tion of Uni­ver­si­ty Link is a water­shed moment for our region, one worth cel­e­brat­ing. Since the found­ing of Per­ma­nent Defense in Feb­ru­ary of 2002 (which pre­dates NPI by about a year and a half), this orga­ni­za­tion has worked dili­gent­ly to defend Sound Tran­sit from the likes of Tim Eyman and ensure that our region gets the light rail spine it needs and deserves.

All of that work has been com­plete­ly worth it. Today, Sound Tran­sit is fly­ing high and enjoys broad pop­u­lar sup­port. Thanks to the lead­er­ship of Joni Earl, who is now CEO Emer­i­tus, Sound Tran­sit is a mod­el pub­lic agency that is fir­ing on all cylin­ders, deliv­er­ing projects on time or ahead of sched­ule, and under budget.

If ST had been shut down and dis­band­ed as crit­ics were demand­ing dur­ing the “dark days” of the late 1990s and ear­ly 2000s, we would­n’t have Cen­tral Link and Air­port Link, com­muter rail, express bus ser­vice, street­cars in Taco­ma and Seat­tle, or the enhance­ments to our park and ride sys­tem that Sound Tran­sit has delivered.

It should not be for­got­ten that four­teen years ago, Tim Eyman launched I‑776, an ini­tia­tive that sought to destroy Sound Tran­sit by elim­i­nat­ing one of its prin­ci­pal rev­enue sources (the motor vehi­cle excise tax). I‑776 nar­row­ly passed, but was par­tial­ly inval­i­dat­ed by the courts, allow­ing ST to pro­ceed with plans to con­struct light rail from from down­town Seat­tle to Tukwila.

ST over­came a tremen­dous amount of hos­til­i­ty and oppo­si­tion to secure the nec­es­sary financ­ing to move for­ward and break ground on Cen­tral Link.

More than twelve years after the shov­els went into the ground in the Rainier Val­ley, Link’s big build-out con­tin­ues. The con­struc­tion has nev­er stopped. Even when Cen­tral Link was done, crews were work­ing on Air­port Link. And even when Air­port Link was done, crews were work­ing on Uni­ver­si­ty Link and Angle Lake Link. Both of those exten­sions will open this year. And even when those are done, the work of extend­ing light rail north, south, and east will go on. It has to.… our region’s con­gest­ed cor­ri­dors need light rail just as soon as we can get it built.

Vot­ers can see that their invest­ments in a region­al tran­sit sys­tem are pay­ing off. This Novem­ber, the peo­ple of this region will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to build on past invest­ments with Sound Tran­sit 3, a pro­pos­al that ST’s staff and board are work­ing on to fur­ther extend light rail, com­muter rail, and bus ser­vice to more neigh­bor­hoods in urban Puget Sound, includ­ing NPI’s home­town of Redmond.

We strong­ly sup­port the devel­op­ment of ST3 and will be work­ing to pass it once it is sub­mit­ted to the bal­lot by Sound Tran­sit’s Board lat­er this year. In the mean­time, it will be won­der­ful to cel­e­brate the open­ing of Uni­ver­si­ty Link on March 19th!