The com­mu­ni­ties of South King Coun­ty, and lead­ers from around the Puget Sound Region gath­ered this morn­ing in Seat­ac to offi­cial­ly inau­gu­rate ser­vice to and from Sound Tran­sit’s newest Link light rail sta­tion at South 200th Street and 28th Avenue South. Angle Lake is the first of sev­er­al new Link exten­sions approved and fund­ed under the 2008 Sound Tran­sit 2 region­al bal­lot measure.

Orig­i­nal­ly slat­ed to open in 2020, Sound Tran­sit is deliv­er­ing light rail ser­vice to Angle Lake four years ear­ly and $40 mil­lion under bud­get. The ear­ly win was made pos­si­ble thanks in part to fed­er­al grants and a lead­er­ship team that took advan­tage of low con­struc­tion bids dur­ing the Great Recession.

This invest­ment in pub­lic infra­struc­ture, strong­ly sup­port­ed by NPI, also solid­i­fies liv­ing-wage jobs at a time of great insta­bil­i­ty, and will con­tin­ue to expand access and oppor­tu­ni­ties to south King Coun­ty res­i­dents for gen­er­a­tions to come.

Click the pho­to below to browse a selec­tion of images from yes­ter­day. An addi­tion­al col­lec­tion of images of the sta­tion ded­i­ca­tion can be viewed on In Brief.

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The sta­tion itself, which is expect­ed to spur eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment and draw 5,400 dai­ly rid­ers by 2018, is a daz­zling new land­mark for the neighborhood.

The ele­vat­ed plat­form crowns a once-drab stretch of Inter­na­tion­al Boule­vard (High­way 99), and frames spec­tac­u­lar views of Puget Sound and the Olympic moun­tain range from near­ly every angle.

The col­or­ful pub­lic art, includ­ing Lau­ra Had­dad’s “Cloud”, blends per­fect­ly with the archi­tec­ture. Even the 1,050-stall park­ing garage could be mis­tak­en for a work by Frank Gehry or Ren­zo Piano thanks to an abstract facade made up of flow­ing blue steel beams. It is topped with solar pan­els that will gen­er­ate four­teen kilo­watts of pow­er, accord­ing to data pro­vid­ed in Sat­ur­day’s presentation.

The pleas­ing curved lines of the plat­form and garage are linked by a large cen­tral plaza and walk­way cov­ered with match­ing blue glass. The ener­getic col­ors will cer­tain­ly bring a refresh­ing tone to Seat­tle’s many dark and drea­ry days.

Thank­ful­ly though, the sun was shin­ing on the hun­dreds gath­ered to mark Sat­ur­day’s grand open­ing ceremony.

The rev­el­ers were as var­ied as the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty, home to some of the nation’s most eth­ni­cal­ly and lin­guis­ti­cal­ly diverse zip codes.

King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber and Sound Tran­sit Board mem­ber Dave Upthe­grove emceed the speak­ing pro­gram, which fea­tured remarks from:

• Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff,
• Fed­er­al Tran­sit Author­i­ty region­al admin­is­tra­tor Lin­da Gehrke;
• 33rd Leg­isla­tive Dis­trict State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mia Gregerson;
• Seat­ac May­or Michael Siefkes;
• Port of Seat­tle Com­mis­sion­er Fred Felleman;
• Alas­ka Air­lines com­mu­ni­ty rela­tions direc­tor Shaunta Hyde;
• Wash­ing­ton State Build­ing & Con­struc­tion Trades exec­u­tive Lee Newgent;
• King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, Chair of the Sound Tran­sit Board.

Also in atten­dance were Seat­ac res­i­dent and for­mer King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Julia Pat­ter­son and for­mer Sound Tran­sit CEO Joni Earl, both instru­men­tal in the plan­ning of Sound Tran­sit 2, which over­whelm­ing­ly passed eight years ago.

Per­haps the most res­onat­ing speech came from for­mer High­line Col­lege stu­dent body pres­i­dent and cur­rent Seat­tle Uni­ver­si­ty stu­dent Pa Ous­man Jobe.

Jobe’s activism was fueled by a vision for bet­ter tran­sit options that could open doors peo­ple in the High­line area. He cit­ed the impor­tance of pro­vid­ing reli­able tran­sit as an issue of equi­ty and opportunity.

These now-tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits of our invest­ment in Sound Tran­sit serve as a time­ly reminder of the impor­tance and urgency of fin­ish­ing what we have started.

In Novem­ber, vot­ers in King, Pierce, and Sno­homish coun­ties will be asked to approve the third phase of Sound Tran­sit’s region­al tran­sit plan, which appears on the bal­lot as Region­al Propo­si­tion 1. Mass Tran­sit Now cam­paign­ers were out in force and orga­niz­ing a can­vass­ing event imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing the celebration.

The inau­gu­ra­tion at Angle Lake Sta­tion brought the com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er to cel­e­brate the achieve­ments of yes­ter­day and today. Now, that mes­sage must inspire much-need­ed action to help keep our region moving.