A great day for Sound Transit: Hilltop Link breaks ground; Lynnwood Link gets funded

Thanks­giv­ing is only a few hours away, and this year, Sound Tran­sit cer­tain­ly has a lot to be thank­ful for. The agency, for­mal­ly known as Puget Sound’s Region­al Tran­sit Author­i­ty, had a stel­lar day. Not only did ST break ground on the Taco­ma Link Hill­top Street­car exten­sion just as the fog lift­ed, but it got word that fed­er­al fund­ing for Lyn­nwood Link — a vital­ly impor­tant ST2 project — is on the way.

Let’s start with the lat­ter news, which was tri­umphant­ly announced by Sen­a­tor Mur­ray’s office this after­noon. Sound Tran­sit is slat­ed to receive $1.2 bil­lion in grants as well as $650 mil­lion in low-inter­est, deferred-pay­ment fed­er­al loans from the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion. This is a real­ly big deal.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion is final­ly giv­ing our region — and specif­i­cal­ly the com­mu­ni­ties of Shore­line and Lyn­nwood — the light rail expan­sion mon­ey we were allot­ted months ago, after Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell suc­cess­ful­ly demand­ed that the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion stop hold­ing it hostage.

“This is fan­tas­tic news for North Sound res­i­dents who are one step clos­er to see­ing our shared goal of expand­ing pub­lic tran­sit options in their com­mu­ni­ties become real­i­ty,” said Mur­ray, the dean of the state’s D.C. del­e­ga­tion, in a statement.

“Com­plet­ing the Lyn­nwood Link light rail exten­sion will help com­muters and con­sumers con­nect with employ­ment and edu­ca­tion cen­ters, local busi­ness­es, as well as address con­ges­tion con­cerns, and I am grate­ful to Sec­re­tary Chao and the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion for fol­low­ing through on their com­mit­ment to move for­ward with this grant agree­ment and get this crit­i­cal project under­way soon.”

“As a voice for our state on the Sen­ate Appro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee, I will con­tin­ue doing my part to ensure the nec­es­sary fed­er­al invest­ments con­tin­ue to flow to Lyn­nwood Link to see this impor­tant project through to its completion.”

“Christ­mas came ear­ly to Puget Sound with a major invest­ment in light rail going to Sno­homish Coun­ty,” agreed Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell.

“This agree­ment will link com­muters and busi­ness­es through­out the region, build more park­ing for com­muters and ease traf­fic con­ges­tion. I appre­ci­ate the hard work of Sec­re­tary Chao and the Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of this project and the impor­tance of this next phase.”

“This is great news for every­one in the Puget Sound region who wants to see more com­mut­ing options and our free­way con­ges­tion eased,” said Dave Somers, Sound Tran­sit Board Chair and Sno­homish Coun­ty Executive.

“Lyn­nwood Link is the first major invest­ment in light rail for Sno­homish Coun­ty, and we appre­ci­ate the hard work of our con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion and the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion. Sound Tran­sit has an ambi­tious plan to deliv­er for the peo­ple of our region, and Lyn­nwood Link is a key part of that plan.”

As Exec­u­tive Somers empha­sized in his state­ment, Lyn­nwood Link brings light rail across the bor­der from King Coun­ty into Sno­homish Coun­ty. It is a project of tremen­dous impor­tance to res­i­dents liv­ing in and around the com­mu­ni­ties of Edmonds, Lyn­nwood, Mount­lake Ter­race, Brier, Muk­il­teo, and beyond, because it will pro­vide a des­per­ate­ly-need­ed way of bypass­ing Inter­state 5 gridlock.

Sound Tran­sit is cur­rent­ly mid­way through the con­struc­tion phase for North­gate Link, which will add three sta­tions to Link’s trunk line begin­ning in 2021. Lyn­nwood Link will take light rail eight and a half miles fur­ther north from there, through Shore­line and into the home coun­ty of Exec­u­tive Somers.

Plan­ning for Lyn­nwood Link has been com­pli­cat­ed by ris­ing costs for real estate acqui­si­tion and com­mu­ni­ty requests for sta­tion designs.

Sound Tran­sit has been count­ing on get­ting fed­er­al sup­port to get Lyn­nwood Link going, but the Trump regime has been mak­ing it wait for the money.

Thank­ful­ly, it now appears the wait is over.

Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff used to work at the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion, and is thus inti­mate­ly famil­iar with the process of dis­burs­ing fed­er­al mon­ey to agen­cies like the one he now runs. While the mon­ey is not in hand yet, it’s real­ly all down­hill from here. The last major stum­bling block has been overcome.

Sound Tran­sit plans to approve the first con­tracts for ini­tial con­struc­tion work on Lyn­nwood Link next month. Ground­break­ing will take place in ear­ly 2019.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Sound Tran­sit on today’s break­through. We salute the deter­mined work of our Unit­ed States Sen­a­tors Pat­ty Mur­ray and Maria Cantwell in mak­ing this hap­pen. They have deliv­ered for us, and we won’t for­get it.

Pri­or to announc­ing the Lyn­nwood Link news, Mur­ray joined Rogoff and U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Derek Kilmer at the ground­break­ing for Hill­top Link, a Sound Tran­sit 3 project that will extend the agen­cy’s Taco­ma street­car 2.4 miles.

Hill­top Link will add six new sta­tions to the exist­ing street­car line, built back in 2003 dur­ing ST Phase One, and relo­cate one exist­ing sta­tion. The new sta­tions will con­nect the Sta­di­um Dis­trict and Hill­top neigh­bor­hoods to the system.

Con­struc­tion will be per­formed by Walsh Con­struc­tion Com­pa­ny II, LLC, and is due to be fin­ished in 2022. The City of Taco­ma and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment are joint­ly fund­ing the project in coop­er­a­tion with Sound Transit.

The new sta­tions will be as follows:

• South 4th
• Sta­di­um District
• Taco­ma General
• 6th Avenue
• Hill­top District
• St. Joseph

Taco­ma Link cur­rent­ly runs from the Taco­ma Dome tran­sit hub at Freight­house Square to the The­ater Dis­trict. The The­ater Dis­trict Sta­tion will close and its relo­cat­ed suc­ces­sor will be be known as the Old City Hall Station.

Today’s ground­break­ing took place at Taco­ma’s Peo­ples Park and brought togeth­er civic lead­ers, union con­struc­tion work­ers, neigh­bor­hood activists, and agency offi­cials. Local busi­ness­es — includ­ing the famous John­son Can­dy Com­pa­ny — pro­vid­ed refresh­ments, and the Tra­cy Knoop Octet pro­vid­ed music.

Join­ing the elect­ed offi­cials for the speak­ing pro­gram were Pierce Coun­ty Build­ing and Con­struc­tion Trades Coun­cil Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Mark Mar­tinez, Hill­top Action Coali­tion’s Bren­dan Nel­son, and North Slope Cof­fee House own­er Den­ny Fak­er. They empha­sized the val­ue Hill­top Link would bring to neigh­bor­hoods that have been wait­ing a long time for an invest­ment like this street­car project.

I was pleased to rep­re­sent NPI at today’s Hill­top Link ground­break­ing. It’s nice to see a Sound Tran­sit 3 project get­ting on track so quick­ly in Pierce County.

Hope­ful­ly Pierce vot­ers beyond the bound­aries of Taco­ma (where ST3 did receive major­i­ty sup­port!) will see the con­struc­tion and real­ize Sound Tran­sit is seri­ous about lib­er­at­ing them from auto depen­dence and nev­er-end­ing gridlock.