NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, September 25th, 2021

Ready for Northgate Link to be open? Get an advance look inside the new Line 1 stations

It’s been a whole five years since Sound Tran­sit last expand­ed our high capac­i­ty tran­sit spine with a new Link light rail exten­sion, but as of next Sat­ur­day, the wait  will final­ly be com­ing to an end when North­gate Link opens to the public.

The 4.3 mile exten­sion, which has been under con­struc­tion since 2012, will add three new sta­tions to the sys­tem for­mer­ly known as Cen­tral Link and now being dubbed Line 1: U Dis­trict, Roo­sevelt, and the name­sake North­gate Station.

If you’d like to take a peek inside the new sta­tions ahead of next Sat­ur­day’s open­ing, we’ve put togeth­er three pho­to gal­leries show­cas­ing each one.

Enjoy, and if you’re curi­ous about tim­ing, know that North­gate Link will be open for your enjoy­ment begin­ning pri­or to dawn’s first light on Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 2nd. Sound Tran­sit has opt­ed against any kind of spe­cial sched­ule for next week­end because that could be need­less­ly dis­rup­tive to rid­ers. So if you want to be on the very first train in rev­enue ser­vice, you’ll need to get up real­ly, real­ly early!

U District

U Dis­trict, short for Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict, is the south­ern­most of the new sta­tions. It is locat­ed on Brook­lyn Avenue between NE 43rd and NE 45th Streets, across the road from the UW Tow­er and steps away from the shops on The Ave.

Are your taste buds as eclec­tic as your wardrobe? Then you, my friend, have come to the right place. Here you’ll find a pletho­ra of indie eater­ies, cof­fee shops, pubs and bars — where you can hang out with UW stu­dents and relive your col­lege days, minus the all-nighters and cold piz­za. What’s more, if you’re in the mar­ket for super fresh pro­duce and all things organ­ic, check out the U Dis­trict Farm­ers Mar­ket every Saturday.

– Sound Transit

The sta­tion has two head hous­es that are sep­a­rat­ed by a small tract of land that will soon be repur­posed for tran­sit-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment by the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton. Here’s some pho­tos from inside (and out­side!) the station:

Roosevelt

Roo­sevelt, the mid­dle of the new sta­tions, is locat­ed at NE 65th Street and 12th Avenue NE, not far from Raven­na Park. Roo­sevelt High School is near­by, as are many small busi­ness­es, from Rain City Burg­ers to Sun­light Cafe and Teddy’s.

Named after Ted­dy Roo­sevelt, this urban-sub­ur­ban neigh­bor­hood was ranked as the 10th hottest in the nation. Here, you’ll dis­cov­er a diverse mix of delight­ful lit­tle restau­rants, cozy cof­fee hous­es and friend­ly bars where every­body knows your name if you have it embroi­dered on your shirt. You’ll also find near­by Green Lake and sev­er­al yoga stu­dios where you can Namaste the day away.

– Sound Transit

Here’s some pho­tos from inside (and out­side!) the station:

Northgate

North­gate is the north­ern­most of the new sta­tions. It is locat­ed at 1st Avenue NE and NE 103rd Street. On one side of the sta­tion is Inter­state 5; on the oth­er side is North­gate Mall and the Seat­tle Krak­en’s new prac­tice facility.

What was once known as one of the coun­try’s first open-air malls, it will soon be home to the Seat­tle Krak­en. So, along with three NHL reg­u­la­tion skat­ing rinks, a train­ing cen­ter, and Krak­en HQ, you’ll find one of the busiest tran­sit cen­ters in the state con­nect­ed to the Link light rail sta­tion. Need­less to say, if you need a ride any­where, and I mean any­where, this is the place to be.

– Sound Transit

Here’s some pho­tos from inside (and out­side!) the station:

If these pho­to gal­leries whet­ted your appetite for more, you can get some “Street View” style glimpses of the under­ground U Dis­trict and Roo­sevelt sta­tions at this web­site that Sound Tran­sit built to pro­mote the new exten­sion.

We will be cov­er­ing next week­end’s open­ing fes­tiv­i­ties here on The Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate, so check back as Octo­ber gets going for our impres­sions and thoughts on the inau­gu­ra­tion of ser­vice to our newest light rail stations!

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  1. […] And these pho­to gal­leries depict the new sta­tions before they opened to riders. […]

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