Just in time for the hol­i­days, the Unit­ed States Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion has award­ed Sound Tran­sit near­ly eight hun­dred mil­lion dol­lars in grant fund­ing to extend Link light rail south to Fed­er­al Way. The agency has also been autho­rized to bor­row $629 mil­lion for the project through a low inter­est loan.

This is tru­ly great news for our region and a wel­come yule­tide gift for com­muters. With­in a few years, our grow­ing rail spine will extend into South King Coun­ty, putting reli­able high capac­i­ty tran­sit ser­vice with­in the reach of more people.

Con­struc­tion on Fed­er­al Way Link is expect­ed to begin in ear­ly 2020.

“Secur­ing this fed­er­al fund­ing enables us to ful­fill our promise of deliv­er­ing region­al light rail to the res­i­dents of South King Coun­ty, said out­go­ing Sound Tran­sit Board Chair and Red­mond May­or John Mar­chione. “The tire­less advo­ca­cy of our con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion was instru­men­tal in com­plet­ing this vital step to trans­form peo­ple’s com­mutes and build a more pros­per­ous future for the region.”

“This is excit­ing news for South Sound com­muters look­ing to get relief from ever-increas­ing con­ges­tion,” said Sound Tran­sit Board­mem­ber and King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine. “With major con­struc­tion on Fed­er­al Way Link start­ing in the new year, this announce­ment means South King Coun­ty will soon join a vast region­al light rail net­work con­nect­ing all of the Cen­tral Puget Sound.”

Sound Tran­sit already has the fol­low­ing Link light rail exten­sions under con­struc­tion and queued up for an open­ing in the first half of the 2020s:

• North­gate Link: Three new sta­tions open­ing in 2021
• East Link: Ten new sta­tions open­ing in 2023
• Lyn­nwood Link: Four new sta­tions open­ing in 2024
• Down­town Red­mond Link: Two new sta­tions open­ing in 2024

Fed­er­al Way and Kent now get to join the par­ty with Fed­er­al Way Link.

A map of the planned Fed­er­al Way Link exten­sion (Cour­tesy of Sound Transit)

“Trains on the 7.8‑mile light rail exten­sion from Angle Lake in SeaT­ac to Fed­er­al Way will serve three sta­tions along the route in Kent/Des Moines, at South 272nd Street and at the Fed­er­al Way Tran­sit Cen­ter. Demo­li­tion and util­i­ty relo­ca­tion work began this fall, and con­struc­tion is set to begin in ear­ly 2020,” Sound Tran­sit says.

By 2025, the num­ber of Link sta­tions will have more than dou­bled. There are cur­rent­ly six­teen Link sta­tions; by the mid­way point of the next decade, there will be thir­ty-eight. The goal is to build a one hun­dred and six­teen mile region­al sys­tem by 2041. The ST3 plan calls for exten­sions of the main spine to Everett and Taco­ma and three addi­tion­al new lines to be con­struct­ed in King County.

“When region­al light rail comes to Fed­er­al Way in 2024, not only will our res­i­dents have more tran­sit options, but it will trans­form our down­town for gen­er­a­tions,” said Fed­er­al Way May­or Jim Fer­rell. “Our city will begin to see this project become real when heavy con­struc­tion starts next year and we are excit­ed for the eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties light rail will bring to our residents.”

We con­grat­u­late Sound Tran­sit on hav­ing secured this fed­er­al fund­ing. We’ve known that it was com­ing for a while, but it’s always a relief when the mon­ey actu­al­ly shows up. Fed­er­al Way des­per­ate­ly needs high capac­i­ty transit.

The begin­ning of con­struc­tion will hope­ful­ly demon­strate to peo­ple in South King Coun­ty that Sound Tran­sit is com­mit­ted to serv­ing them and get­ting them con­nect­ed to Link as soon as pos­si­ble. It’s tru­ly a great feel­ing to be able to see crews at work build­ing our trans­porta­tion future. Peo­ple who live and work on the East­side have seen East Link tak­ing shape for sev­er­al years.

Now it’s South King Coun­ty’s turn. Onwards to the groundbreaking!