At the edge of a station pit in Roosevelt, regional transportation leaders met for a momentous press conference on major progress that Sound Transit will make in 2016. Leading the announcements were new Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff and King County Executive Dow Constantine (who doubles as sitting Sound Transit Board of Directors Chair). They shared many specifics on upcoming service deployment for Central Link, Sounder, and ST Express as well as major capital project milestones and sending a transit expansion plan to voters.
Light Rail Expansion
On the minds of many is just when University Link, a 3.2-mile extension of Central Link, will open. Sound Transit has consistently promised an early opening of the segment sometime in the first quarter of this year. Sound Transit officials say that the Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations will open with light rail service in March, but no specific start date has yet been announced. Whispers, of course, are running wildly in the transit community, with some confident that trains will start on a Saturday whichever March weekend that might be. Importantly, University Link will open nearly six month earlier than originally anticipated and more than $150 million under budget.
Sound Transit will open another light rail segment of Central Link late this year. Service on the S 200th St extension to Angle Lake, a 1.4-mile segment of light rail in Seatac, will begin during the month of September. The extension will add one station, known as Angle Lake Station, to Central Link bringing the system-wide total to 16. The extension will open on-time and $40 million under budget. Meanwhile, work on the East Link line between Seattle and Redmond will break ground in February; the first segment planned for construction is the tunnel in Bellevue. Actual excavation for the tunnel will begin in the summer, but contractors will start initial site preparation work for tunnel boring machine (TBM) launch and project management.
Tunneling work on the light rail extension to Northgate is progressing rapidly with the help of two TBMs. Brenda and Pamela, as they are known, have been digging their way southward since 2014. Brenda reached University District Station back in November, but was switched off over the holidays for interim repairs. Contractors recently sent the TBM back on her way toward Husky Stadium. Your humble reporter felt and heard the fruits of her digging last Thursday, which are, admittedly, not so graceful in the wee hours of the night. Meanwhile, Pamela is hot on the heels of Brenda. Sound Transit has reported that Pamela is well within the University District and will soon reach the same station box on Brooklyn Ave NE.
At the press conference, it was revealed that tunneling work on the extension would wrap up late this year. In fact, from a November 2015 agency report, project scheduling indicates that tunneling work for Brenda and Pamela should be completed on May 4th and August 26th, respectively. And perhaps more importantly, tunnel and station work is estimated to be done by Christmas 2019 — a full two months earlier than indicated in a similar report from January 2015 — leaving only track, electrification, and systems testing remaining. That’s phenomenally ahead of schedule, but the overall schedule still points to a service start date in 2021.
Sounder and ST Express
A new weekday roundtrip will be added to the Sounder South Line in September. This addition is notable because it will be the first off-peak roundtrip service for the line. Sound Transit plans to provide a northbound mid-morning from Lakewood to Seattle with a complementary southbound mid-afternoon trip. Two additional roundtrips will be added to the South Line in 2017, likely requiring significant schedule changes.
Sound Transit will launch a new Seattle-Eastside service in March. Route 541 will operate between the University of Washington and Overlake Village. That route covers some of the same territory as Route 542 (Greenlake-Redmond), but that service will remain essentially the same. Route 541, however, will get be weekday peak service with 48 daily trips to provide a strong connection between the new University of Washington Station and the tech hub in Redmond.
Sound Transit will also make a big bus purchase in March. 27 new buses will be ordered to improve the ST Express fleet. A full 16 of the buses to be ordered will be double-deckers, much like the five Alexander Dennis Enviro500s that the agency operates on ST Express services from Snohomish County.
Regional Transit Package
Finally, Sound Transit will wrap work on an updated System Plan for Sound Transit 3 and send voters a new regional transit investment package for a November vote. The Sound Transit Board of Directors are well into the process of System Plan development, and many transit advocates are trying to push the envelope on what a final System Plan might look like. Importantly, the Sound Transit Board of Directors are faced with key decisions on what the plan period will be, what types of capital investments they want to make, and where those investments are likely to go.
At the top of the priority list, it appears, is completion of the spine. Essentially, completion of the spine would entail light rail service stretching from Everett to Tacoma. But other worthy investments also rise to the top, including: light rail from Ballard to Downtown Seattle, West Seattle to Downtown Seattle, Overlake to Downtown Redmond, and Totem Lake (Kirkland) to Issaquah. Dozens of other project priorities are being evaluated like bus rapid transit on SR-522, infill light rail stations in Seattle, a permanent Edmonds Sounder station, and Sounder extension to Dupont.
Funding is a big question though, and one that the Board must weigh substantially. The base $15 billion, as authorized by the State, would hamstring the Board from making far-reaching investments over the next few decades. Instead, the Board would have to trim down the candidate project list significantly to make the math work while meeting the highest priorities. On the other hand, the Board could extend their taxing and bonding authority over a longer period of time, in the 20- to 30-year range, and raise billions more for transit investments; choices under those scenarios become less difficult for good projects.
So between politics, new service, and major project milestones, Sound Transit will have a big year in 2016.
As an added bonus, you can watch the full press conference on Youtube.
Stephen is a professional urban planner in Puget Sound with a passion for sustainable, livable, and diverse cities. He is especially interested in how policies, regulations, and programs can promote positive outcomes for communities. With stints in great cities like Bellingham and Cork, Stephen currently lives in Seattle. He primarily covers land use and transportation issues and has been with The Urbanist since 2014.