The new year is set to bring a new series of service disruptions to Sound Transit’s flagship light rail line between Lynnwood and Angle Lake, as the agency juggles expansion projects on top of work to fix existing system issues. Much of this work has been scheduled in the first quarter of the year to coincide with lower ridership and fewer big events, and get it out of the way before major work on I-5 draws riders to 1 Line light rail.
Disruptions are planned every single weekend from January 4 through the end of February, which will be painful for riders. With two major rail openings scheduled for this year — the Downtown Redmond Link Extension in spring and the full 2 Line opening across Lake Washington in late 2025 — getting this work out of the way will allow Link to operate closer to full strength through times of highest ridership demand.
Here’s what 1 Line riders will need to know to prepare for the next few months.
Nightly 12-15 minute frequencies January 4 to February 27
The first disruption is relatively minor compared to the others, but long-lasting. In order to install a roof on the forthcoming 130th Street infill station — set to open in 2026 between Northgate and Shoreline South — Sound Transit will be single-tracking through that area, a move that will prompt frequencies to drop to every 12 minutes from 8 or 10 minutes for nearly two full months. This will happen nightly starting at 5:30pm until the end of service.
On weekends when other work isn’t occurring, frequencies will drop even further to every 15 minutes. Those weekends are: January 4-5, January 25-26, and February 8-9.
Weekends don’t necessarily come with less ridership demand. Weekend ridership on the 1 Line has been outpacing weekday ridership in many cases over the past few months, as Link becomes an essential way to access entertainment and sporting events. Nonetheless, Sound Transit has continued its practice of scheduling its most disruptive maintenance work on weekends.
The 130th Street infill station was originally scheduled to go online in the mid 2030s as part of other Sound Transit 3 projects, but was officially accelerated in 2021 so that work could be completed on the station while crews were still working on Lynnwood Link. Today most of the station house is in place, with much of the work left to be completed away from the platform so that trains can continue running, but the station roof is a key piece that still needs to be installed. Soon the station will get its official name soon after a renaming survey put forward a few different options.
Infill stations at Graham Street and Boeing Access Road remain on track to open in 2031.
Weekend downtown station closures start January 10
Starting on the second weekend in January, the 1 Line will entirely shut down through Downtown Seattle so that Sound Transit can complete systems tie-in work needed to connect the forthcoming full 2 Line with the 1 Line near International District/Chinatown Station. For the weekend of January 10-12, trains will head as far south as Westlake Station, but over the weekends of January 17-19, February 14-16, and February 21-23 they’ll stop at Capitol Hill.
Replacement shuttle busses will run every 10-15 minutes through Downtown stopping near all stations. On all three weekends, the station closures will start at 10pm on Friday and extend through to the start of service on Monday morning.
With high demand for Link on the weekends, the shuttles can get packed, and these closures are an excellent opportunity to scope bus routes that might actually be faster than utilizing the shuttles, like connecting to the Route 8 or 48 at Mount Baker, the Route 60 at Beacon Hill and Capitol Hill, or the Route 70 between the University District and Downtown.
Capitol Hill – University District closure February 1-2
The service disruption over the weekend of February 1-2 may be one of the most eagerly anticipated station closures in recent memory: crews will repair damaged overhead catenary system (OCS) in the northbound light rail tunnel near University of Washington station. Since the damage occurred in mid-September, Sound Transit has resorted to operating all northbound trains at a crawl both entering and leaving UW Station, adding a few minutes to every trip and frustrating riders trying to make tight connections.
Sound Transit had planned to fix the OCS in early December, but cancelled plans due to a systemwide telecom outage, rescheduling for the first week of February.
A bus bridge will connect University District, UW, and Capitol Hill stations during this closure, though Route 70 will be a good choice for many riders. Light rail trains on the north segment will run every 12 minutes, but only every 15 minutes between Capitol Hill and Angle Lake, undoubtedly leading to crowding particularly through downtown.
These Link closures and reduced headways, all coming in a row over the next few weeks, are not going to make life easy for riders, but planning ahead and knowing what’s coming is the best way to ensure they don’t disrupt your entire day.
Ryan Packer lives in the Summit Slope neighborhood of Capitol Hill and has been writing for the The Urbanist since 2015. They report on multimodal transportation issues, #VisionZero, preservation, and local politics. They believe in using Seattle's history to help attain the vibrant, diverse city that we all wish to inhabit. Ryan's writing has appeared in Capitol Hill Seattle Blog, Bike Portland, and Seattle Bike Blog, where they also did a four-month stint as temporary editor.