Sound Transit officially breaks ground on Lynnwood Link, delighting Snohomish County

Relief is in sight for grid­lock-weary Sno­homish Coun­ty res­i­dents tired of fight­ing con­ges­tion on I‑5 between down­town Seat­tle and Lynnwood.

Today, Sound Tran­sit offi­cial­ly broke ground on Lyn­nwood Link, which will bring light rail across the King/Snohomish coun­ty line for the first time, extend­ing the region’s high capac­i­ty tran­sit spine north­wards towards Everett.

At a cer­e­mo­ny at the Lyn­nwood Tran­sit Cen­ter, the agency cel­e­brat­ed the long-antic­i­pat­ed mile­stone with a third of the state’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion plus state leg­is­la­tors, labor lead­ers, and con­struc­tion workers.

“Today’s ground­break­ing is the cul­mi­na­tion of more than a decade of plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion,” said Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff in a statement.

“From the begin­ning, this project has received enthu­si­as­tic sup­port from the fed­er­al, state and local gov­ern­ments, our con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion, the busi­ness and labor com­mu­ni­ties, and vot­ers — a sign of the hunger for relief from the hor­ren­dous high­way con­ges­tion fac­ing trav­el­ers every day. This project will be a game chang­er for Sno­homish Coun­ty com­muters. And in the years to come, we will be extend­ing Link from Lyn­nwood all the way to Everett.”

Near­ly every­one else who spoke joined Rogoff in tout­ing Link’s planned north­ward exten­sion to the seat and largest city of Sno­homish County.

Get­ting Link to Everett was one of the cen­ter­pieces of the Sound Tran­sit Phase III (ST3) sys­tem expan­sion plan in 2016. But Everett Link may not hap­pen on time — or at all — if we don’t stop Tim Eyman’s Ini­tia­tive 976, which is on the bal­lot this far. I‑976 seeks to repeal one of the three prin­ci­pal fund­ing sources for ST3, which would result in the loss of bil­lions in rev­enue and severe­ly impair Sound Tran­sit’s abil­i­ty to bor­row mon­ey to finance the projects that vot­ers approved.

I‑976 is opposed by a broad and diverse coali­tion that NPI has been deeply involved in pulling togeth­er. The ros­ter of par­tic­i­pat­ing orga­ni­za­tions is grow­ing longer by the day as more and more Wash­ing­to­ni­ans sign on to help defeat I‑976. If you have not yet got­ten engaged, you can do so at no976.org.

The fact that all three of Wash­ing­ton’s top three statewide elect­ed offi­cials showed up to this ground­break­ing says a lot about what this project means to our region. When Lyn­nwood Link is com­plete and open to the pub­lic in just a few years, it will be pos­si­ble to roll between Seat­tle and Sno­homish Coun­ty in a pre­dictable amount of time, every day of the week, regard­less of traf­fic conditions.

At present, the only tran­sit ser­vice between Seat­tle and Sno­homish Coun­ty that does­n’t have to share the road with cars on fre­quent­ly grid­locked Inter­state 5 or arte­ri­als run­ning par­al­lel to I‑5 is Sounder North, which does not make any stops between Edmonds and King Street Sta­tion in down­town Seat­tle and only runs dur­ing com­mut­ing hours except for spe­cial “Game Day” week­end trains.

Link will rev­o­lu­tion­ize tran­sit in North King Coun­ty and South Sno­homish Coun­ty, per­mit­ting Sound Tran­sit, Metro, and Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit to extend the reach of the region’s tran­sit net­work by real­lo­cat­ing bus ser­vice to under­served areas.

Is it any won­der, then, that Sno­homish Coun­ty lead­ers are pos­i­tive­ly delighted?

Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dave Somers is thrilled. “The expan­sion of Link light rail will be trans­for­ma­tive for Sno­homish Coun­ty and the region,” he said. “Too many of our res­i­dents are stuck in traf­fic for far too long every day. Giv­ing them addi­tion­al options to avoid dri­ving — includ­ing light rail, bus rapid tran­sit and heavy rail — will improve their qual­i­ty of life and our region’s envi­ron­men­tal health.”

Sound Tran­sit has long been count­ing on fed­er­al funds to make Lyn­nwood Link a real­i­ty. Wash­ing­ton’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion deliv­ered, even with Don­ald Trump in the White House. Although Unit­ed States tax­pay­ers are mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant and cru­cial con­tri­bu­tion, it is impor­tant to note that local tax­es still make up the lion’s share of the pro­jec­t’s fund­ing. It is a true part­ner­ship in every sense.

Here’s the basics on what is being built, when it’ll open, and who will benefit:

Lyn­nwood Link light rail ser­vice is sched­uled to begin in 2024. Sound Tran­sit plans trains to oper­ate every four to six min­utes dur­ing week­day peak hours.

Com­muters from the Lyn­nwood Tran­sit Cen­ter will enjoy twen­ty-minute rides to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, twen­ty-sev­en minute rides to down­town Seat­tle and six­ty minute rides to Sea-Tac Air­port. Trains from Lyn­nwood will also serve the East­side and reach down­town Belle­vue in fifty-one min­utes. Sound Tran­sit projects rid­er­ship to reach between 47,000 and 55,000 dai­ly rid­ers by 2026.

Empha­sis is mine. Think about that: Trains will be run­ning every four to six min­utes dur­ing peak hours. No joke! Trains will come so often that rid­ers won’t need to wor­ry about sched­ules. Just tap that ORCA card, walk onto the plat­form, and board a Blue Line train that will ulti­mate­ly go to the East­side, or a Red Line train for points south of Down­town Seat­tle. You can zip by the traf­fic on Inter­state 5 in a ful­ly acces­si­ble elec­tric light rail vehi­cle with no tailpipe.

In just two years, the north­ern ter­mi­nus of our rail spine will move from the UW to North­gate with the open­ing of three new sta­tions. That will put light rail near­ly four and half miles clos­er to to the Sno­homish Coun­ty line. If con­struc­tion goes as planned, Lyn­nwood Link will fol­low just three years later.

NPI con­grat­u­lates Sound Tran­sit on today’s mile­stone and wish­es con­trac­tors Sta­cy & Witbeck/Kiewit/Hoffman JV, Skan­s­ka L300 JV, and our union labor­ers all the best as they under­take the work of bring­ing Link north into Sno­homish County.