Travel Light! Northgate Link opens to riders in a watershed moment for mobility in Seattle

Ear­ly this morn­ing, in the qui­et pre-dawn hours before sunup, Sound Tran­sit opened the doors to three new light rail sta­tions north of Lake Union and the Mont­lake Cut, com­plet­ing a twen­ty-five year effort to bring high capac­i­ty, high fre­quen­cy, and high qual­i­ty tran­sit ser­vice to Seat­tle’s North­gate neighborhood.

The inau­gu­ra­tion of rev­enue ser­vice on North­gate Link marks the end of the work to deliv­er the orig­i­nal Sound Move plan approved by vot­ers in 1996, which called for an ini­tial light rail line run­ning from SeaT­ac to Northgate.

That line, ini­tial­ly dubbed “Cen­tral Link,” ulti­mate­ly end­ed up get­ting built and open­ing in stages rather than all at once. The first stage opened in July of 2009, and con­sist­ed of twelve sta­tions in Seat­tle and Tukwila.

Sound Tran­sit then added four more sta­tions: SeaT­ac in Decem­ber 2009 (Air­port Link), Capi­tol Hill and Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton in March 2016 (Uni­ver­si­ty Link), and a sec­ond SeaT­ac sta­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2016 (Angle Lake Link).

Today’s addi­tions are the most new sta­tions the region has seen simul­ta­ne­ous­ly open at once since the first stage all the way back in 2009.

“This is a his­toric day and the start of three years that will trans­form how peo­ple get around our region,” said Sound Tran­sit Chair Kent Keel. “North­gate Link will let thou­sands of rid­ers get to their des­ti­na­tions on time with­out sit­ting in hor­ren­dous traf­fic. We are able to cel­e­brate this mile­stone thanks to sup­port from Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion, our con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion and the region­al vot­ers who approved build­ing a world-class tran­sit sys­tem for our grow­ing communities.”

“The open­ing of North­gate Link is a great leap for­ward for Puget Sound com­muters, the first of many leaps for­ward for Sound Tran­sit in the com­ing years,” said Sound Tran­sit CEO Peter Rogoff. “As Sound Tran­sit looks to near­ly triple our light rail net­work in just the next three years, we are thank­ful for the hard work and ded­i­ca­tion of staff and the con­struc­tion work­force in achiev­ing this mon­u­men­tal feat in the mid­dle of a pandemic.”

Owing to the sig­nif­i­cance of the occa­sion, the agen­cy’s advance news release offi­cial­ly com­mem­o­rat­ing the begin­ning of rev­enue ser­vice to North­gate Link incor­po­rat­ed quotes from over a dozen leaders:

• Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee
• U.S. Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Murray
• U.S. Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell
• U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Prami­la Jayapal
• U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rick Larsen
• FTA Admin­is­tra­tor Nuria Fernandez
• King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Constantine
• Seat­tle May­or Jen­ny Durkan
• Everett City Coun­cil Mem­ber Paul Roberts
• Seat­tle City Coun­cilmem­ber Deb­o­ra Juarez
• Muck­leshoot Indi­an Tribe’s Vice Chair­man Don­ny Stevenson
• Mark Rik­er, Labor Liai­son to the Sound Tran­sit Board and Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary of the Wash­ing­ton State Build­ing and Con­struc­tion Trades Council

The agency held a speak­ing cer­e­mo­ny at the North­gate Sta­tion yes­ter­day to cel­e­brate the com­ple­tion of the project, which was fol­lowed by a pre­view ride on a train that car­ried rep­re­sen­ta­tives of NPI and oth­er local media out­lets in addi­tion to elect­ed lead­ers, Sound Tran­sit staff, and con­trac­tor personnel.

Reg­u­lar users of the UW/Husky Sta­di­um and Capi­tol Hill sta­tions will notice some impor­tant ingress and egress improve­ments in these three new stations.

All were built with non­emer­gency stairs that go all the way down (or up) to the sta­tion plat­form, as well as heavy duty “tran­sit grade” escalators.

U Dis­trict and Roo­sevelt are under­ground sta­tions designed for light rail that feel like sib­lings to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, Capi­tol Hill, and Bea­con Hill sta­tions, which were all designed for light rail rather than light rail and buses.

North­gate is an aer­i­al sta­tion that feels like a sib­ling to Tuk­wila Inter­na­tion­al Boule­vard, SeaT­ac, and Angle Lake Sta­tions down at the south­ern end of the line. (And per­haps Mount Bak­er, as well, which is locat­ed at the sys­tem’s midpoint.)

Sound Tran­sit has been run­ning sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice to North­gate for some time now, ensur­ing that oper­a­tors are famil­iar with the new sta­tion and track­age, and allow­ing the agency to obtain its final per­mits and certifications.

This video, tak­en from the air last month, shows a train pulling into North­gate Sta­tion on a warm Sep­tem­ber day dur­ing the final weeks of sim­u­lat­ed service.

And these pho­to gal­leries depict the new sta­tions before they opened to rid­ers.

Now that the sta­tions are open, it’s your turn, Seat­tle! You are now free to move about the city in ways you nev­er were before. Line 1 is the rock sol­id link to down­town, Capi­tol Hill, and points south that North­gate, Roo­sevelt, and U Dis­trict have long need­ed, but have sim­ply had to get along without.

Like Uni­ver­si­ty Link, North­gate Link is going to trans­form mobil­i­ty in Seattle.

And quick­ly, too: Metro and Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit debuted a host of sched­ul­ing and route changes this morn­ing in tan­dem with the sta­tion open­ings, to take advan­tage of the city’s newest mul­ti­modal tran­sit hubs.

To see what routes are affect­ed, vis­it this page on King Coun­ty Metro’s web­site and this page on Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit’s web­site.

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Sound Tran­sit and its con­trac­tor part­ners (JCM North­link, Hoff­mann Con­struc­tion, Absh­er Con­struc­tion, Sta­cy and Wit­beck, and Mass Elec­tric) on this huge­ly con­se­quen­tial accom­plish­ment. The Sound Move vision has been real­ized, at long last! Here’s to many hap­py trips today, tomor­row, and in the years ahead that will be made pos­si­ble by North­gate Link.