Sound Transit begins pre-revenue testing on Lynnwood Link extension

It’s only been a few weeks since rev­enue ser­vice was inau­gu­rat­ed on the 2 Line, but already Sound Tran­sit is mov­ing into the home­stretch of prepa­ra­tions to add four new sta­tions to the north­ern end of the 1 Line. On August 30th, Lyn­nwood Link will begin car­ry­ing rid­ers, bring­ing light rail ser­vice to Sno­homish Coun­ty for the first time.

Lead­ers up there are burst­ing with anticipation.

Sound Tran­sit held an event today at Lyn­nwood City Cen­ter Sta­tion to cel­e­brate the begin­ning of pre-rev­enue test­ing. Sno­homish Coun­ty Exec­u­tive Dave Somers and Lyn­nwood May­or Chris­tine Frizzell spoke along with Sound Tran­sit inter­im CEO Goran Spar­rman and Deputy Region­al Admin­is­tra­tor Scot Rastel­li of the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion (FTA). They offered remarks in front of a Siemens LRV parked at the new sta­tion and con­struc­tion work­ers who have been build­ing the project.

“We’re less than three months away from the open­ing of the Lyn­nwood exten­sion,” said Somers, also a Sound Tran­sit Board Vice Chair. “Each mile­stone brings us that much clos­er to fast, reli­able light rail ser­vice that Sno­homish Coun­ty res­i­dents have been want­i­ng and need­ing for years. I’m thrilled that we will final­ly be able to ride Link and enjoy the eco­nom­ic, cli­mate, and com­mu­ni­ty ben­e­fits that it will bring to the county.”

“Thanks to the hard work of our con­struc­tion teams and staff, the fin­ish line for the Lyn­nwood exten­sion is rapid­ly approach­ing,” said Spar­rman. “With this new phase, our part­ners at King Coun­ty Rail will be play­ing an impor­tant role in ensur­ing that we are ready for full oper­a­tions when we cut the rib­bon on open­ing day.”

Pre-rev­enue test­ing, accord­ing to Sound Tran­sit “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.”

“Dur­ing this peri­od, light rail vehi­cles are run­ning fre­quent­ly between the North­gate and Lyn­nwood City Cen­ter sta­tions,” the agency says. “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.”

Pret­ty much all of the Lyn­nwood Link align­ment is ele­vat­ed. While the 2 Line has a few at-grade cross­ings in the Bel-Red area, and the Rainier Val­ley por­tion of the 1 Line has even more, Lyn­nwood Link does­n’t have any. All of the sta­tions are aer­i­al sta­tions. And most of the tracks can be seen from Inter­state 5. 

If you dri­ve the inter­state from North­gate up to Exit 181, you can’t miss the new Link right of way. The columns and gird­ers, nes­tled among the trees, will get your attention. 

After pre-rev­enue test­ing comes sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice. “Dur­ing sim­u­lat­ed ser­vice, all trains will dis­charge pas­sen­gers at North­gate and con­tin­ue to Lyn­nwood,” Sound Tran­sit says. (That means pas­sen­gers board­ing at North­gate need to pay atten­tion — some depart­ing trains will be going north and out of ser­vice!) “When the Lyn­nwood exten­sion opens, trains will run every eight min­utes dur­ing peak hours.” 

We have Sta­cy & Witbeck/Kiewit/Hoffman JV and Skan­s­ka Con­struc­tors L300 JV to thank for the com­ple­tion of the project, as they and their work­ers were respon­si­ble for exe­cut­ing the civ­il con­struc­tion on the Lyn­nwood Link extension. 

We also have Sen­a­tor Pat­ty Mur­ray, Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell, and the Biden-Har­ris admin­is­tra­tion to thank. Sound Tran­sit notes that the $3.26 bil­lion project bud­get for Lyn­nwood Link “includes up to $1.17 bil­lion from a Full Fund­ing Grant Agree­ment exe­cut­ed by the Fed­er­al Tran­sit Admin­is­tra­tion. In addi­tion, the U.S. Depart­ment of Transportation’s Build Amer­i­ca Bureau exe­cut­ed a $658 mil­lion low-inter­est loan sup­port­ing the project, includ­ing new light rail vehi­cles and sup­port facilities.” 

Pret­ty huge assist!

The exten­sion will add the fol­low­ing stations: 

• Shore­line South/148th Sta­tion. Locat­ed just north­east of I‑5 at the NE 145th Street exit, the ele­vat­ed Shore­line South/148th Sta­tion includes a park­ing garage with approx­i­mate­ly 500 new spaces as part of the project.
• Shore­line North/185th Sta­tion. Locat­ed on the east side of I‑5, the Shore­line North/185th Sta­tion serves Shore­line Sta­di­um, the Shore­line Con­fer­ence Cen­ter and the sur­round­ing neigh­bor­hoods. Improved pedes­tri­an path­ways con­nect the sta­tion to the west side of I‑5. A park­ing garage with approx­i­mate­ly 500 new spaces is part of the project.
• Mount­lake Ter­race Sta­tion. Locat­ed east of I‑5 at the Mount­lake Ter­race Tran­sit Cen­ter just north of 236th Street South­west, west of Vet­er­ans Memo­r­i­al Park, the ele­vat­ed Mount­lake Ter­race Sta­tion strad­dles 236th Street South­west, and is a short walk from the Mount­lake Ter­race Library, new city hall and future tran­sit-ori­ent­ed devel­op­ment. There are 890 exist­ing park­ing spaces near the station.
• Lyn­nwood City Cen­ter. Locat­ed at the Lyn­nwood Tran­sit Cen­ter, this ele­vat­ed sta­tion serves one of the busiest tran­sit cen­ters in the region, with exten­sive con­nec­tions to local and region­al ser­vice. A new garage con­tain­ing 1,670 park­ing stalls in a five-sto­ry struc­ture opened last year. 

The Lyn­nwood City Cen­ter sta­tion garage is tru­ly mas­sive. It dwarfs the garages Sound Tran­sit built or is build­ing for the 2 Line. How­ev­er, it’s not see­ing heavy usage yet, because there’s lots of con­struc­tion still occur­ring at the sta­tion site (which is help­ing mask the garage’s entrances) and light rail has yet to open. After August 30th, how­ev­er, those expen­sive park­ing stalls are like­ly to see more occupancy. 

Word is going to get out that there’s a new way to move up and down the high­ly con­gest­ed Seattle/Lynnwood cor­ri­dor, espe­cial­ly in the sub­urbs that lie between Seat­tle and Everett. Dur­ing traf­fic jams, motorists on I‑5 will also be able to see trains rolling along above them every few min­utes, unhin­dered and unin­ter­rupt­ed, as they sit and wait.

Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit plans to recon­fig­ure some of its bus lines to con­nect to light rail. CEO Ric Ilgen­fritz, a Sound Tran­sit alum, was on hand for the event today and is look­ing for­ward to the region’s rapid tran­sit net­work get­ting more robust. 

Com­mu­ni­ty Tran­sit has a flour­ish­ing bus rapid tran­sit sys­tem called Swift that even sev­er­al Sound Tran­sit crit­ics think is pret­ty great. It has three lines so far: Blue, Green, and Orange. Gold is in plan­ning, along with exten­sions to Blue and Green. 

The Swift Blue Line is set to be extend­ed to the Shore­line North/185th Sta­tion when Lyn­nwood Link opens — that will be one of the key new connections.

Since the 2 Line and 1 Line don’t con­nect yet, Sound Tran­sit can’t make use of the Oper­a­tions & Main­te­nance Facil­i­ty East (a train base) to sup­port 1 Line ser­vice yet. That will require some cre­ative logis­tics. But only tem­porar­i­ly! The agency hopes to have trains run­ning across Lake Wash­ing­ton some­time next year. Addi­tion­al­ly, Sound Tran­sit is still work­ing on plans for a third OMF to be locat­ed in South King Coun­ty. The envi­ron­men­tal impact state­ment for that project is now fin­ished and avail­able for review. 

Vot­ers have autho­rized Sound Tran­sit to build light rail all the way to Everett, but project deliv­ery is not antic­i­pat­ed for more than a decade and a half. 

Agency staff are work­ing on that project along with exten­sions to Taco­ma, West Seat­tle and Bal­lard (via South Lake Union and Seat­tle Cen­ter), a new light rail tun­nel under down­town, and anoth­er light rail line on the East­side that’ll run between Kirk­land and Issaquah — not to men­tion two Stride bus rapid tran­sit projects on the I‑405 and State Route 522 cor­ri­dors. Sound Tran­sit’s sys­tem expan­sion is one of the biggest mass tran­sit build-outs in the coun­try, and sore­ly need­ed, giv­en the rebound in traf­fic the region has seen since the stay-home phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Sound Tran­sit is expect­ed to release more details about the inau­gu­ra­tion of Lyn­nwood Link next month and in August. Notably, the cho­sen open­ing day is a Fri­day, rather than a Sat­ur­day, the day of the week the agency has usu­al­ly cho­sen for sta­tion openings.