What’s it like to ride East Link light rail? In a word: Incredible!

This morn­ing, with just forty-eight hours to go until the East Link / Line 2 exten­sion opens to rid­ers, Sound Tran­sit gave the local press an oppor­tu­ni­ty to jump on the train and ride our region’s newest light rail line from end-to-end… twice! It was rain­ing, but that did­n’t damp­en any­one’s inter­est or enthu­si­asm, nor did it affect our com­fort in the slight­est, because we were warm and dry while on the trains, and most­ly dry on the plat­forms, which are large­ly cov­ered to pro­tect rid­ers from the elements. 

Sound Tran­sit Inter­im CEO Goran (Jer-ahn) Spar­rman and board­mem­bers Clau­dia Bal­duc­ci, Ed Prince, and Angela Bir­ney joined us for the pre­view ride, which last­ed about two hours, includ­ing the stops we made at Belle­vue Down­town, Spring Dis­trict, and Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy. This was the third of three pre­view rides: I’m told King Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dow Con­stan­tine and oth­er board­mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed in a dif­fer­ent pre­view ride yes­ter­day, and Sound Tran­sit staff were invit­ed to one the day before that. 

From start to fin­ish, it was an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence. Part of it felt very sim­i­lar to rid­ing the 1 Line: the rolling stock is the same, so there was­n’t the nov­el­ty of step­ping onto a Puget Sound area light rail train for the first time, as there was in 2007 when I went on my first-ever Link pre­view ride. But glid­ing through the East­side on a train was def­i­nite­ly a new expe­ri­ence. Much of the align­ment is ele­vat­ed — you actu­al­ly get a great view of Belle­vue as you’re mov­ing between Wilbur­ton and Belle­vue Down­town Sta­tions, for exam­ple. And there’s views of Over­lake and beyond as you pass over 148th Avenue NE.

Rolling through the tun­nel under­neath down­town Belle­vue was fun, too. Years ago, I had the chance to walk through the tun­nel after it had been exca­vat­ed (an expe­ri­ence I’ll like­ly nev­er have again, so I’m glad I record­ed it!) and it was great to go through the fin­ished struc­ture as a rid­er. Sound Tran­sit staff kind­ly left the doors to the oper­a­tor’s cab open so we could take pho­tos and videos through the windshield. 

Starter line stations

For now, Line 2 con­sists of eight sta­tions in Belle­vue and Redmond:

• Red­mond Technology
• Over­lake Village
• Bel-Red
• Spring Dis­trict
• Wilbur­ton
• Belle­vue Downtown
• East Main
• South Belle­vue

Map

Next year, four more sta­tions are slat­ed be added: two to the west and two to the east. The west­ern sta­tions will only be ready to serve rid­ers after Sound Tran­sit con­trac­tor Kiewit fin­ish­es fix­ing the prob­lems with the track on the cross-lake seg­ment. The east­ern sta­tions in NPI’s home­town of Red­mond — Mary­moor Vil­lage and Down­town Red­mond — are on sched­ule and will be among the first ST3 (Phase III) projects to be completed. 

Statistics from Sound Transit

• Open:​​​​​
  • South Belle­vue Sta­tion to Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Cen­ter: 2024
  • South Belle­vue Sta­tion to Inter­na­tion­al District/Chinatown Sta­tion: 2025 (pro­ject­ed)
• Length: 14 miles; 10 stations
• Ser­vice: Every 8 min­utes in peak hours.
• Pro­ject­ed trav­el times:
  • Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy to Belle­vue Down­town: 10 minutes

Our ride

We start­ed our ride at South Belle­vue and made two “in between” stops before reach­ing Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion. We did not get off at East Main, Bel-Red, or Over­lake Vil­lage; I will be vis­it­ing those sta­tions this week­end as part of our open­ing week­end cov­er­age. How­ev­er, we did trav­el from end-to-end twice, as I mentioned. 

How long does it take to travel from end-to-end?

We did­n’t get off dur­ing our return trip from Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Sta­tion to South Belle­vue, but the train stopped at every sta­tion just as it would in real ser­vice. The jour­ney took a lit­tle over eigh­teen minutes. 

Here’s a video show­ing the view of out the window: 

Soon, it’ll be your turn! 

You can have this same expe­ri­ence begin­ning this Sat­ur­day when East Link opens to every­body. Unlike for Cen­tral Link’s open­ing week­end in July 2009, Line 2 ser­vice will inau­gu­rate as rev­enue ser­vice. So, bring your ORCA card and get ready to tap on — unless you’re under eigh­teen, in which case you can ride fare-free thanks to the Cli­mate Com­mit­ment Act that Bri­an Hey­wood and Jim Walsh fool­ish­ly want to repeal.

The East Link open­ing fes­tiv­i­ties begin at 10 AM at Down­town Belle­vue Sta­tion. There will be a speak­ing pro­gram and a rib­bon-cut­ting, and then peo­ple will be able to get on the first trains that will car­ry rid­ers. There will be two: one going to South Belle­vue Sta­tion and one going to Red­mond Tech­nol­o­gy Station. 

If crowds aren’t your jam, you can always plan on try­ing out Line 2 lat­er on Sat­ur­day or the next day, Sun­day, because trains will be show­ing up every few minutes. 

One of the great things about light rail is you don’t need a sched­ule to ride it. You just show up on the plat­form, and a few min­utes lat­er, you’ll be able to board. Sound Tran­sit has real-time noti­fi­ca­tions oper­a­tional for this open­ing, so you’ll be alert­ed when a train going either direc­tion is a cou­ple of min­utes away. The over­head screens are also nicer and more col­or­ful than the ones at most of the 1 Line stations. 

Once you’ve watched all of the videos and enjoyed all of the pho­tos in this post, you may also want to check out our bird’s eye aer­i­al tour of the Line 2 sta­tions, which we pub­lished back in 2021, and our Trainspot­ting with NPI series, which depicts East Link trains in var­i­ous modes of test­ing. We have plans for more Trainspot­ting install­ments focus­ing on the Lyn­nwood Link exten­sion, which will add four more sta­tions to the 1 Line, between now and the grand open­ing of ser­vice on August 30th. 

We’d love to hear about your expe­ri­ences on Line 2 once you’ve had a chance to try it out. Com­ment threads on this post will remain open for sev­er­al weeks, and you’re also wel­come to stop by and join us for our open­ing week­end cov­er­age this Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. Stay safe out there and Trav­el Light!