Sound Transit’s East Link gets an opening date: 2 Line service to begin on April 27th

Sound Tran­sit has, at last, fixed a date for the inau­gu­ra­tion of ser­vice on the Red­mond to Belle­vue por­tion of its long-await­ed East Link exten­sion: April 27th!

On that day, the pub­lic will be able to start using the 2 Line to get around the East­side, and enjoy com­mute times between Red­mond and Belle­vue’s down­towns that are half as long as a trip on Metro’s RapidRide Line B.

The debut of light rail in NPI’s home­town is a huge mile­stone and one we’ve been eager­ly await­ing since this orga­ni­za­tion’s ear­ly years. The vot­ers of this region backed the East Link project in 2008 as part of Sound Tran­sit’s Phase II sys­tem expan­sion, and it’s tak­en over a decade and a half to design and build.

But our patience is being rewarded.

Open­ing Day will soon be here, bring­ing high capac­i­ty tran­sit ser­vice to Over­lake, Bel-Red, the Spring Dis­trict, down­town Belle­vue, Sur­rey Downs, and south Belle­vue. On and after April 27th, here’s what East­siders and vis­i­tors to East King Coun­ty can expect, accord­ing to Sound Tran­sit’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion team:

• Ser­vice will run from 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM sev­en days a week and will con­nect with the region­al tran­sit net­work at South Belle­vue, Belle­vue Down­town and Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy stations.
• Park­ing is avail­able at South Belle­vue, BelRed and Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy sta­tions. Sev­er­al sta­tions are acces­si­ble from the Eas­trail cor­ri­dor and the region­al trail net­work. Secure bike park­ing is avail­able at every station.
• Every­one is invit­ed to cel­e­brate open­ing day with Sound Tran­sit and its part­ners on Sat­ur­day, April 27th. The fes­tiv­i­ties will start with a rib­bon cut­ting cer­e­mo­ny at Belle­vue Down­town Sta­tion at 10 AM. Link ser­vice will begin oper­at­ing after the rib­bon cut­ting at approx­i­mate­ly 11 AM.
• Fol­low­ing the rib­bon cut­ting and through­out the day, all eight of the new sta­tions will fea­ture dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties, exhibits and enter­tain­ment. Any­one who par­tic­i­pates in a Discover.Stamp.Win activ­i­ty and vis­its all eight sta­tions will be eli­gi­ble to enter a prize drawing.

“The open­ing of the 2 Line on the East­side took the vision, cre­ativ­i­ty and tire­less work of many peo­ple to make good on the promise we made to vot­ers in 2008,” said Sound Tran­sit Board­mem­ber and King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci. “I pushed to open this 6.5‑mile, 8‑station starter line to con­nect some of the region’s largest employ­ers, grow­ing neigh­bor­hoods, and incred­i­ble des­ti­na­tions. Today we’re set­ting the stage for the Eastside’s con­tin­ued trans­for­ma­tion and con­nect­ing peo­ple to oppor­tu­ni­ty now. I can’t wait to ride it!”

“With the open­ing of the 2 Line on the East­side this spring, and our major expan­sion into Sno­homish Coun­ty this fall, we’re bring­ing the con­ve­nience of light rail to hun­dreds of thou­sands more peo­ple across the region. That means more peo­ple will be able to use Link light rail to skip the traf­fic and park­ing has­sles and get to school, work, games, con­certs and more, inex­pen­sive­ly and on time, every time,” said King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine, the chair of ST’s board.

“We are thrilled to cel­e­brate the 2 Line open­ing at Belle­vue Down­town Sta­tion,” said Belle­vue May­or Lynne Robin­son. “Bellevue’s part­ner­ship with Sound Tran­sit has been guid­ed by a shared vision to improve mobil­i­ty and access for every­one who lives, works and plays in Belle­vue and the region. This open­ing brings us even clos­er to a future with a mul­ti­tude of effec­tive trans­porta­tion options to get where you need to go on the East­side and beyond.”

“Light rail’s arrival to Red­mond is mon­u­men­tal, as our region is under­go­ing rapid trans­for­ma­tion,” said Red­mond May­or Angela Bir­ney, who recent­ly joined the Sound Tran­sit Board along with King Coun­ty Coun­cilmem­ber Gir­may Zahi­lay. “We are grate­ful for our fed­er­al, state and local part­ners who have been with us for decades to get to this point, as well as to our vot­ers who made this path a real­i­ty. I look for­ward to see­ing our com­mu­ni­ty cel­e­brate on open­ing day and take a ride on this easy, traf­fic-free con­nec­tion between Red­mond and Bellevue.”

“The 2 Line is the prod­uct of the sus­tained com­mit­ment of project part­ners and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers, and years of hard work by Sound Tran­sit staff and con­trac­tors,” said Sound Tran­sit Inter­im CEO Goran Sparrman.

“Hav­ing worked on the East Link project with the City of Belle­vue in the plan­ning phase, I’m excit­ed to see the project mov­ing toward opening.”

When it opens, the 2 Line won’t serve its two west­ern­most sta­tions (Jud­kins Park, Mer­cer Island) or con­nect to the 1 Line, because con­trac­tors are fix­ing defects on the align­ment between Mer­cer Island and Seat­tle. Because Sound Tran­sit built a train yard in Belle­vue (the Oper­a­tions & Main­te­nance Facil­i­ty East), it does­n’t need work­ing tracks across the lake to start up ser­vice in Red­mond and Bellevue.

Sound Tran­sit hopes to add the west­ern­most sta­tions to the sys­tem in 2025. And by that time, two new east­ern sta­tions should also be ready to make their debut — Mary­moor and down­town Red­mond. Those four sta­tions will com­plete the 2 Line, mak­ing it pos­si­ble to trav­el by foot and train from NPI head­quar­ters into down­town Seat­tle and many oth­er des­ti­na­tions, like SeaT­ac Air­port or the UW.

The agency has been sim­u­lat­ing rev­enue ser­vice between Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion and South Belle­vue for sev­er­al weeks now, and to our knowl­edge, there have been no major issues. There are many cool van­tage points where you can see trains glid­ing along through the East­side at reg­u­lar inter­vals, and you can also see them from parts of Inter­state 405 and State Route 520, because the align­ment either cross­es or runs next to those highways.

If you’re as excit­ed as we are about East Link’s debut, you may be inter­est­ed in our bird’s eye tour of the East Link sta­tions and our Trainspot­ting series, show­ing Link trains in action in Belle­vue and Redmond.