(The Center Square) – Friday morning brought the official opening of the long-awaited 8.5-mile Lynwood extension of Sound Transit’s Link light rail line.
Sound Transit projects between 47,000 and 55,000 daily riders by 2026.
During a media event ahead of Friday’s official opening, current and former Sound Transit employees and board members got a chance to ride the new section and see what $3.1 billion in taxpayer dollars built.
“Sound Transit is going to make history by bringing light rail across the county line, uniting King and Snohomish counties,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine, who chairs the Sound Transit board.
“Lynnwood Link is part of Sound Transit’s larger expansion over the next two years,” Constantine continued. “We’re going from 39 stations and 35 miles of light rail, to 53 stations and 62 miles in the system, and Lynnwood is adding four of those new stations.”
Constantine touted benefits around housing and livability in connection with the extension.
“Tens of thousands more people will have access to job centers and local services and destinations like the stadiums and the airport,” he said.
There are affordable housing projects adjacent to each transit station.
“There are, system wide, 3,300 new homes just on Sound Transit property and the majority of those are affordable housing,” Constantine explained.
More than 160 affordable homes are being built right next to the Lynnwood station, and there are more than 1,200 new and proposed housing units within a quarter-mile of Mountlake Terrace’s new light rail station.
As previously reported by The Center Square, Sound Transit hopes to allay concerns about safety on its trains and at its transit stations by increasing security.
The agency also recently changed it’s fare enforcement policies.
During the pandemic, there was no enforcement and riders got accustomed to hopping on without paying for a ticket.
As of Friday, all Sound Transit fares went to a flat $3 dollar ticket, no matter the length of the ride.
Snohomish County Executive Dave Sommers, who is also a Sound Transit board member, told The Center Square getting riders to pay the fare has been frustrating.
“You talk to transit officials in other cities, and they complain about having 20% of riders not paying,” he said, explained Sound Transit is happy to get 40% of riders paying the fare.
All riders under the age of 18 ride Sound Transit for free.
The new ride from Lynnwood to Westlake Station is projected to take 28 minutes. A trip from Lynnwood to Sea-Tac Airport will take 70 minutes.
In the next year-and-a-half, Sound Transit plans to expand Link light rails services.
South of Seattle, the Federal Way Extension is still under construction. The extension will add 8 miles and three new stations to Sound Transit’s 1 Line to Angle Lake.
“We’re looking at Spring of 2026 for Federal Way,” David Jackson, Sound Transit public information officer, told The Center Square this week.
The project is nearly two years behind schedule.
Sound Transit is also building a maintenance and operations facility on property where Christian Faith Center currently operates a large church, daycare and school.
“We have an agreement now, so we have access to the property and we’re working with them to make that transition as smooth as possible,” Jackson said.
Christian Faith Center on property along South 336th Street, consists of more than 200,000 square feet of building space on an approximately 25-acre campus.
Church officials and local residents fought Sound Transit’s plan for years, but as of late June, the agency announced an agreement with the city.
Federal Way Mayor Jim Ferrell recently told the Federal Way Mirror, “We made our position clear in the process, but we understand the rationale behind the final decision. Now it’s time to move forward. There certainly will be benefits like the 600 livable wage jobs.”
About 90 homes and 11 businesses will also be displaced.
Christian Faith Center has already submitted requests to the city to build a new center at Kitts Corner, just south of their current property.
According to 2022 reports published by Washington Policy Center, since 2017, Sound Transit’s full system expansion went from costing taxpayers $92 billion to $142 billion and project completion was stretched from 2041 to 2046.
