This after­noon, a few blocks away from NPI head­quar­ters at NE 164th & 83rd, Sound Tran­sit kicked off the con­struc­tion phase of the Down­town Red­mond Link light rail exten­sion with a short ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny and speak­ing program.

Dig­ni­taries and civic lead­ers cel­e­brate the begin­ning of con­struc­tion on Sound Tran­sit’s Down­town Red­mond Link exten­sion (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

When com­plete, this exten­sion will bring Blue Line trains into the heart of NPI’s home­town. Rev­enue ser­vice is ten­ta­tive­ly sched­uled to begin in late 2024.

This mile­stone holds enor­mous sig­nif­i­cance for me. I got into pol­i­tics in 2002 because I want­ed to pro­tect our region’s tran­sit future from the likes of Tim Eyman. I have always want­ed to see our region estab­lish a high capac­i­ty tran­sit sys­tem that would one day be expand­ed to Red­mond, which I am so for­tu­nate to call my home, and where NPI has been based since its incep­tion in 2003.

My first project as a new­ly mint­ed activist was Per­ma­nent Defense, which con­tin­ues to this day. I knew that to sur­vive and thrive, Sound Tran­sit would need polit­i­cal and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port, and I want­ed to do my part to unite our region in defense of the tran­sit that we had vot­ed for in 1996 with Sound Move.

As of next Feb­ru­ary, Per­ma­nent Defense will have an eigh­teen year track record of sup­port­ing the essen­tial work of Sound Transit.

When PD was found­ed, Link light rail was still on the draw­ing board and fed­er­al fund­ing was not in place for the ini­tial Cen­tral Link line.

Today, Link is a boom­ing high capac­i­ty tran­sit sys­tem with six­teen sta­tions and dozens more under con­struc­tion to the north and east of the main spine. Plan­ning is under­way to expand the sys­tem to the south and west, as well.

A sign wel­comes atten­dees to the Down­town Red­mond Link ground­break­ing event (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

There is no doubt in my mind that light rail will rev­o­lu­tion­ize life in Red­mond and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ties. When the Blue Line reach­es down­town, it will be pos­si­ble to step onto a train and reli­ably com­mute to any num­ber of places — from the Finan­cial Dis­trict in Seat­tle to Cen­tu­ryLink Field or T‑Mobile Park to Over­lake Hos­pi­tal to the Microsoft cam­pus to UW Seat­tle and SeaT­ac Airport.

Some esti­mat­ed trav­el times:

• Peo­ple trav­el­ing from down­town Red­mond will be able to reli­ably reach down­town Belle­vue in eigh­teen minutes;
• … Lyn­nwood in six­ty-nine minutes;
• … the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in forty-nine minutes;
• … Sea-Tac Air­port in sev­en­ty-two minutes;
• … and Fed­er­al Way in eighty-sev­en minutes.

Through modeshift­ing, it will be pos­si­ble to reach some of the afore­men­tioned des­ti­na­tions even more quick­ly. For exam­ple, for a faster trip to UW Seat­tle, I could take a Blue Line train part of the way and then trans­fer to a Sound Tran­sit or Metro bus going over the Ever­green Point Float­ing Bridge from down­town Red­mond. That way, I would­n’t have to go out of my way to reach my destination.

Hav­ing a rail spine on the East­side to sup­port our net­work of bus routes will be so lib­er­at­ing. Link tru­ly rep­re­sents free­dom for Puget Sounders.

Free­dom from mad­den­ing grid­lock on our highways.

Free­dom from being forced to drive.

Free­dom from bumpy roads.

Free­dom from cli­mate-destroy­ing air pollution.

Even if you love dri­ving and have no plans to ride Sound Tran­sit’s Blue Line, you will still ben­e­fit from it, because peo­ple like me will glad­ly, hap­pi­ly ride it and will choose it over hop­ping in the car for many of our trips.

My gen­er­a­tion knows and believes the future is mul­ti­modal. We are the ones who will inher­it this region, this coun­try, this Earth. We want to be able to get around more safe­ly, reli­ably, and sus­tain­ably than we can today.

Mobil­i­ty is impor­tant to us.

Walk­a­ble neigh­bor­hoods, bike paths, and high capac­i­ty tran­sit are all essen­tial to the future we want for our­selves and those com­ing after us.

Sound Tran­sit’s staff — who are sad­ly often demo­nized by Tim Eyman and right wing talk show hosts like Dori Mon­son — under­stand this. They are crit­i­cal thinkers and plan­ners who want our region to be ready for the future. They do not cling to sil­ly fan­tasies about autonomous, self-dri­ving cars solv­ing all of our trans­porta­tion prob­lems at some mag­i­cal junc­ture with­in the next few years. They rec­og­nize that to be eco­nom­i­cal­ly suc­cess­ful and well con­nect­ed, our region needs rail.

In 2002, I remem­ber think­ing, if we are suc­cess­ful in sav­ing Cen­tral Link and get­ting it built, I want to see light rail in Red­mond with­in twen­ty-five years.

Well, the very next year, Sound Tran­sit broke ground on Cen­tral Link. Now, six­teen autumns lat­er, Sound Tran­sit is break­ing ground on Down­town Red­mond Link.

We are on track to have the Blue Line in Red­mond in the mid-2020s.

What an incred­i­ble accomplishment.

This Sound Tran­sit map shows the align­ment for Down­town Red­mond Link, includ­ing sur­face and aer­i­al seg­ments (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

“Today we cel­e­brate a mile­stone in cre­at­ing a world-class trans­porta­tion sys­tem that will link com­mu­ni­ties across three coun­ties,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, a for­mer ST board chair. “Not only will Red­mond, Mary­moor Park and Microsoft be acces­si­ble by high capac­i­ty rail, but Sound Tran­sit’s com­mu­ni­ty invest­ments will help deliv­er long-need­ed con­nec­tions between region­al bike trails, mak­ing it even eas­i­er to get around with­out a car.”

“Demand for tran­sit on the East­side will only increase as Red­mond con­tin­ues to grow as an area peo­ple want to live and work,” said Red­mond May­or and Sound Tran­sit Board Chair John Mar­chione. “Today we cel­e­brate a win for tran­sit rid­ers, dri­vers and pedes­tri­ans who will soon trav­el quick­ly, eas­i­ly and traf­fic-free between homes and work­places in Red­mond and des­ti­na­tions through­out the region.”

“Down­town Red­mond’s open­ing, just one year after the com­ple­tion of East Link, will unlock trans­for­ma­tive mobil­i­ty and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties,” said King Coun­ty Coun­cil Vice Chair and Sound Tran­sit Board­mem­ber Clau­dia Balducci.

“The 2024 open­ing will not only pro­vide con­ges­tion-free trips to more jobs and schools across the region, it will cre­ate new con­nec­tions to our most icon­ic parks and trails and it could spur much need­ed afford­able hous­ing on the Eastside.”

“Today’s ground­break­ing fol­lows years of plan­ning and part­ner­ship to com­plete the region­al tran­sit net­work to Down­town Red­mond,” said Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff. “With­in five years our Link exten­sions to Red­mond, Lyn­nwood and Fed­er­al Way, and Stride BRT ser­vice on I‑405 and SR-522 will enable many thou­sands more rid­ers to escape crip­pling traffic.”

What a joy­ous day it will be when Link opens it doors to rid­ers in down­town Red­mond. NPI will be there to cel­e­brate that momen­tous occa­sion. Until then, we will cheer on the efforts to con­struct our new sta­tions and aer­i­al guideways.

And we will con­tin­ue to do every­thing we can to defeat Tim Eyman’s incred­i­bly destruc­tive I‑976, which threat­ens fund­ing for Down­town Red­mond Link.

We wish Sound Tran­sit, con­trac­tor Sta­cy & Witbeck/Kuney, and our skilled union labor­ers all the best as they bring this project to a suc­cess­ful conclusion.