Get an operator’s view of every new East Link / 2 Line light rail station

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s East Link / 2 Line pre­view ride, Sound Tran­sit secu­ri­ty staff were kind enough to open the door to the oper­a­tor’s cab and allow pho­tog­ra­phers such as myself and The Seat­tle Times’ Ken Lam­bert to take pho­tos over the oper­a­tor’s head and shoul­ders. Nor­mal­ly, get­ting these sorts of snaps is darn near impos­si­ble due to agency safe­ty and oper­at­ing reg­u­la­tions — but the pre­view ride was a spe­cial occa­sion, and no reg­u­lar pas­sen­gers were on board, so we were treat­ed to sights that usu­al­ly only Amal­ga­mat­ed Tran­sit Union mem­bers and Sound Tran­sit per­son­nel get to see. 

With East Link open­ing tomor­row, it’s the per­fect time to share my favorite pho­tos from this van­tage point dur­ing the pre­view ride so you can see some of what we saw dur­ing our 2 Line pre­view expe­ri­ence. I’ve select­ed one pic­ture for each sta­tion. Enjoy!

South Bellevue Station

This is the 2 Line’s south­ern ter­mi­nus — for now. (When Link’s cross-lake seg­ment opens, it will cease to be a ter­mi­nus.) It has a large park­ing garage and has many bus con­nec­tions. It is locat­ed near the con­flu­ence of I‑90 and I‑405 on Belle­vue Way.

East Main Station

This sta­tion is locat­ed near sev­er­al hotels just south of the finan­cial and com­mer­cial core of down­town Belle­vue, includ­ing the Red Lion and the Hilton.

Bellevue Downtown

This sta­tion is locat­ed next to Belle­vue City Hall and across from the Mey­den­bauer Cen­ter. The Belle­vue Tran­sit Cen­ter — which should per­haps be renamed the Belle­vue Bus Hub now that light rail is part of the tran­sit mix — is diag­o­nal­ly oppo­site from its plaza. 

Wilburton

This sta­tion is locat­ed near Lake Belle­vue. It is adja­cent to NE 8th Street and employs what used to be rail­road right-of-way. It is the sta­tion near­est to Over­lake Hos­pi­tal and Kaiser Per­ma­nen­te’s main cam­pus in Bellevue. 

Spring District

This sta­tion is locat­ed in between 120th Avenue NE and 124th Avenue NE in the boom­ing Spring Dis­trict neigh­bor­hood. Sound Tran­sit’s Oper­a­tions & Main­te­nance Facil­i­ty East — the train yard where 2 Line trains are stored when not in ser­vice — is nearby. 

Bel-Red

This sta­tion is locat­ed in between 130th Avenue NE and 132nd Avenue NE in the Bel-Red cor­ri­dor. The 2 Line makes its only at-grade street cross­ings before and after this sta­tion. All of those cross­ings have gates and flash­ing lights to min­i­mize the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a collision.

Overlake Village

This sta­tion is locat­ed near 148th Avenue NE, along­side State Route 520, in the Over­lake neigh­bor­hood, an area that is rapid­ly being trans­formed with the con­struc­tion of new mixed-use build­ings con­tain­ing apart­ments and retail establishments. 

Redmond Technology

This sta­tion replaced the Over­lake Park & Ride in the heart of the area that hous­es the Microsoft cam­pus. It will serve as the east­ern ter­mi­nus of East Link / 2 Line until the Down­town Red­mond Sta­tion becomes the ter­mi­nus some­time in 2025. 

Join us tomorrow for the grand opening!

The wait is just about over… tomor­row, East Link / 2 Line opens to rid­ers! If you’d like to join us for the fes­tiv­i­ties, they kick off at 10 AM at Belle­vue Down­town Sta­tion. There will be activ­i­ties at every sta­tion for much of the day, so even if you skip the rib­bon cut­ting, there will be plen­ty to do. Come on down and have a good time! Park­ing near Belle­vue Down­town Sta­tion will be lim­it­ed — there will be street clo­sures, too — so con­sid­er tak­ing Metro or ST Express to reach the rib­bon-cut­ting from either South Belle­vue Sta­tion or Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion. The garages are open! You’ll lat­er be able to use light rail for your return journey.