Category: Public Planning

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.

Expe­ri­ence or relive the rib­bon cut­ting for Hill­top Link, an exten­sion of the T‑Line street­car sys­tem in the City of Destiny. 

The East Link exten­sion, approved as part of Sound Tran­sit Phase II in 2008, will con­nect Belle­vue and Red­mond to Mer­cer Island and Seat­tle when com­plete. Defec­tive con­struc­tion on the cross-lake seg­ment (which is neces­si­tat­ing a do-over of some work) prompt­ed the agency to rethink the orig­i­nal open­ing plans.

The ser­vice is a six-mile long bus rapid tran­sit line that begins in Browne’s Addi­tion, a his­toric neigh­bor­hood near Spokane’s Down­town area, and winds through down­town and the Gon­za­ga Uni­ver­si­ty Dis­trict, all the way to Spokane Falls Com­mu­ni­ty College.