Sound Transit begins pre-revenue light rail testing on the Eastside, opens RTS garage

In the lat­est sign that the East­side’s long wait for light rail ser­vice is near­ing an end, Sound Tran­sit this week began pre-rev­enue test­ing on the future 2 Line between Belle­vue and Red­mond and invit­ed the pub­lic to begin using the Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion garage in the heart of the Microsoft campus.

Sound Tran­sit has test­ed trains in Belle­vue and Red­mond before, but not to this extent. As the agency explained in a news release:

“This phase includes train­ing for oper­a­tors and main­te­nance staff, and con­tin­ued test­ing to ensure sta­tions, tracks, util­i­ties, and vehi­cles work togeth­er as expect­ed in prepa­ra­tion for the start of ser­vice next spring.”

“Light rail vehi­cles will run fre­quent­ly between the South Belle­vue and Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy sta­tions, includ­ing at street cross­ings in the Bel-Red area [near the 130th Street sta­tion]. Pedes­tri­ans and motorists should be alert for trains and expect they could be run­ning at any time of the day or night.”

“In addi­tion to trains on the tracks, peo­ple can expect to see main­te­nance vehi­cles, test­ing equip­ment, and per­son­nel involved in the test­ing process, and hear sounds typ­i­cal in an oper­at­ing light rail sys­tem includ­ing sta­tion announce­ments, wheels on the tracks, and warn­ing sig­nals. The next phase of test­ing will be sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice, expect­ed to begin ear­ly next year.”

Because trains will be run­ning a lot more fre­quent­ly, folks trav­el­ing in the Bel-Red area need to pay atten­tion to their sur­round­ings. It’s cru­cial to look both ways before cross­ing train tracks. Don’t be com­pla­cent: those tracks are now in active use and will con­tin­ue to be in the future. Cross­ing tracks while star­ing at your iPhone and lis­ten­ing to music on your Air­Pods just isn’t a good idea.

Instead, pock­et the phone and pop your ear buds out, or take your head­phones off, so you can scout for any approach­ing trains using all of your senses.

For those curi­ous what it’s like to see trains rolling through the East­side, NPI high­ly rec­om­mends our Trainspot­ting with NPI series. The first install­ment has clips of train test­ing at night in Belle­vue. More recent install­ments have depict­ed trains oper­at­ing dur­ing the day in both Belle­vue and Red­mond, like this one.

While it won’t be pos­si­ble to ride Line 2 trains through the East­side until next spring at the ear­li­est, Red­mond area rid­ers who com­mute by car or bike for the last few miles of their mul­ti­modal trips can take advan­tage of the new­ly opened Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion park­ing garage. It’s locat­ed where the Over­lake Park & Ride used to be, in the heart of the Microsoft cam­pus, adja­cent to the NE 40th exit from State Route 520. Sound Tran­sit says it con­tains three hun­dred park­ing stalls and cov­ered facil­i­ties for forty-four bicycles.

The entrance may not be obvi­ous to many rid­ers at first.

The park­ing garage does­n’t have a ground lev­el, because that’s where the RTS bus loop is locat­ed. Motorists may not use the bus loop entrance, which looks like the way to get in, because that’s reserved for bus­es and shut­tles only. (ST Express, King Coun­ty Metro, and Microsoft­’s Con­nec­tor all stop there.)

To access the garage, it’s nec­es­sary to turn right on NE 36th, then turn right into the sta­tion dri­ve­way as the road is curv­ing to the left. That dri­ve­way leads to a ramp that allows vehi­cles to ascend into the garage. There are sev­er­al lev­els avail­able, includ­ing a top lev­el with a pret­ty sweet view of the Microsoft campus.

“This garage pro­vides a new hub for tran­sit rid­ers and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. It’s a step toward a more con­nect­ed East­side and Puget Sound region, allow­ing more peo­ple to access tran­sit,” said Sound Tran­sit Board Chair and King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, who joined Red­mond May­or Angela Bir­ney, Coun­cilmem­ber Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci, and CEO Julie Timm for a rib­bon cutting.

“The Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion Park­ing Garage offers more mobil­i­ty options for more peo­ple across our region,” said Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci, also the Sound Tran­sit Sys­tem Expan­sion Com­mit­tee Chair. “This open­ing at Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion rep­re­sents anoth­er excit­ing step for­ward as we build the future with light rail ser­vice that will con­nect peo­ple to the activ­i­ties and oppor­tu­ni­ties in some of the most dynam­ic neigh­bor­hoods on the Eastside.”

“The new struc­ture was built by Kiewit-Hoff­man,” Sound Tran­sit noted.

“Con­struc­tion on the garage was recent­ly com­plet­ed through strong part­ner­ship and col­lab­o­ra­tion between Sound Tran­sit, the con­trac­tor, and the city of Red­mond. Local Artist Kate Sweeney cre­at­ed the art­work dis­played on the garage ceil­ing above the tran­sit loop, depict­ing an algo­rithm known as the Apol­lon­ian Gas­ket. This work is a nod to the tech­nol­o­gy com­mu­ni­ty sur­round­ing the station.”

“The algo­rithm, named after the math­e­mati­cian Apol­lo­nius of Per­ga, is a frac­tal gen­er­at­ed from a col­lec­tion of tan­gent cir­cles con­tained with­in a sin­gle larg­er cir­cle. The sculp­tures hang like clouds over the bus wait­ing areas, cre­at­ing a live­ly and engag­ing space for passengers.”

Watch a clip of the rib­bon cutting:

Watch the speak­ing pro­gram that pre­ced­ed it:

NPI will con­tin­ue to bring you cov­er­age of the work to get the 2 Line ready for rid­ers in the spring of next year. These are excit­ing days for the Eastside!