Three new Seattle light rail stations will soon be here: Northgate Link opens in one month

The final count­down is on!

As of today, we are just one month away from the open­ing of North­gate Link, which will add three shiny, brand new light rail sta­tions to Sound Tran­sit’s cen­tral spine north of Lake Union and the Mont­lake Cut: one in the Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict, one in the Roo­sevelt neigh­bor­hood, and one at Northgate.

These are the first new sta­tions to join the sys­tem since Angle Lake opened five years ago in SeaT­ac, becom­ing the line’s south­ern ter­mi­nus. All have been built with the lessons learned from the Husky Sta­di­um (UW) and Capi­tol Hill stations.

For exam­ple, each sta­tion is equipped with heavy duty, “tran­sit grade” esca­la­tors that can stand up to seri­ous wear and tear, along with non­emer­gency stairs that go all the way down (or up) to the plat­form. Sound Tran­sit also expe­dit­ed the process of mak­ing adja­cent prop­er­ty avail­able for tran­sit ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment, so that afford­able hous­ing units right next to light rail can become homes for Seat­tleites more quick­ly. Notably, a project at Roo­sevelt is near­ing com­ple­tion, and will wel­come ten­ants not long after the sta­tion opens.

This evening, Sound Tran­sit held an event at the North­gate Sta­tion to hon­or all of the work­ers who have helped build this cru­cial new mul­ti­modal trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of media out­lets got a chance to speak direct­ly with sev­er­al work­ers whose labor have got­ten Sound Tran­sit to where it is today. You can watch all of the inter­views back to back right here:

After­wards, reporters walked up to the mez­za­nine and plat­form with Sound Tran­sit staff, where four car trains (includ­ing both Siemens and Kink­isharyo con­sists) can be seen pulling in and out of the sta­tion every few min­utes as oper­a­tors and man­agers com­plete final test­ing for rev­enue ser­vice next month.

Dur­ing our tour, we were able to glimpse SDOT’s most­ly com­plet­ed pedes­tri­an and bicy­cle bridge over Inter­state 5, as well. The bridge con­nects direct­ly to the mez­za­nine lev­el of the new sta­tion, mak­ing it easy to get to or from North Seat­tle Col­lege from Seat­tle’s newest big mul­ti­modal tran­sit hub, which is adja­cent to the North­gate com­plex on the east side of the interstate.

Sound Tran­sit says that all north­bound trains are now con­tin­u­ing on past UW to U Dis­trict, Roo­sevelt, and North­gate in prepa­ra­tion for the big day on Octo­ber 2nd, which will mark the begin­ning of a new era for mobil­i­ty in our region, as high capac­i­ty tran­sit reach­es Link’s orig­i­nal­ly con­ceived north­ern terminus.

“The sight of trains run­ning at reg­u­lar inter­vals is a reminder of just how close we are to the open­ing of the North­gate Link exten­sion,” said Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff in a Sep­tem­ber 1st state­ment. “Start­ing Octo­ber 2, every­one will be able to enjoy fast, traf­fic-free rides from North­gate to down­town Seat­tle and beyond.”

“Dur­ing sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice, most rid­ers won’t notice any dif­fer­ences dur­ing test­ing, but UW Sta­tion rid­ers will notice some small changes,” the agency says.

“Instead of using both tracks to board trains, rid­ers will board at the south­bound track only and the north­bound track will become drop-off only.”

“Trips between Capi­tol Hill and UW will also be a lit­tle faster, as trains will no longer slow down to switch tracks just south of UW.”

Sound Tran­sit is also using the North­gate Link open­ing to begin a rebrand­ing exer­cise, which will entail phas­ing out its “Link” and “Sounder” monikers in favor of let­ters and num­bers. Sounder North is slat­ed to become the N Line, Sounder South will be referred to as the S Line, the Taco­ma Link street­car will become the T Line, and the cur­rent Link light rail main­line will become the 1 Line.

The tran­si­tion will take time.

Even the news release announc­ing the changes was titled “Sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice begins on North­gate Link seg­ment ahead of Oct. 2 open­ing,” show­ing that Sound Tran­sit itself has­n’t giv­en up on Link just yet.

It remains a good name, and it’s unlike­ly to ever com­plete­ly go away, because num­bers are sim­ply not as mem­o­rable as names are.

The com­ple­tion of North­gate Link marks the end of Sound Tran­sit’s work to deliv­er the light rail sys­tem that was orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed to vot­ers as part of “Sound Move” in 1996. It took twen­ty-five years to get it all planned and built, but it’s here at last, and it has been built to last. Impor­tant­ly, we won’t have to wait anoth­er five years for the next new sta­tions to join the sys­tem, as Sound Tran­sit plans to inau­gu­rate ser­vice on East Link (Line 2) in just two years.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to every­one who had a hand in get­ting North­gate Link to where it is today! We’re delight­ed to see the progress and look for­ward to cov­er­ing the sta­tion open­ing here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate when Octo­ber rolls around.