LYNNWOOD, Wash. — A 16-year wait is nearly over. In 17 days, four stations leading north to the Lynnwood City Transit Center will open. The $3 billion project was approved in part by Snohomish County voters to fund an eventual extension into Everett. The Lynnwood extension is the first station in Snohomish County for Sound Transit’s Link light rail.
“For people without Cars, it adds just another mode of transportation,” Quannary Mach said, a student who takes the bus from Montlake Terrace to college in Edmonds. Mach says he can see himself using it for school, to go to downtown Seattle or beyond.
“It just adds another layer of convenience to get down to SeaTac rather than park your car.” he said.
Trains are scheduled every eight minutes during peak times and every ten minutes outside of that. Once the Eastside extension to Bellevue is completed, connecting the North and East stretches of the Metro area, trains will run every five minutes.
“[Riders] on reliable efficient service to get to their destination. They won’t have to sit in soul-crushing traffic on I-5.” said John Gallagher, a spokesperson with Sound Transit.
Sound Transit estimates up to 55,000 people will ride the line each day with the potential of 14 million trips each year.
For Lynnwood resident and “strictly bus” rider Amy Fleischer, she believes the Link will be a good thing and will “give me a change to go further than I normally would” though she’s concerned Seattle’s safety and homelessness crisis could spread on the system.
“Maybe it gives them more, broadens their horizons and it can be good for them, but how are we going to keep [trains] safe and clean,” Fleisher said.
When asked about safety Tuesday, King County Executive and current Sound Transit Board Chair Dow Constantine said the agency has added hundreds of private security guards and have worked to increase Transit Police staffing through the King County Sheriff’s Office.
“In the spring I created a transit safety initiative where we are really focusing on the bus and the rail system to make sure people who are causing trouble or having challenges are dealt with immediately and brought to the right place,” he said, “It might be detention, or it might be a behavioral health or mental health facility.”
Constantine looks to the housing being built around the Lynnwood city center station and along the Link extension as key to solving housing and affordable housing shortages in the region.
In Lynnwood 1,500 apartments are already under construction in the direct vicinity of the new station.
The buildings will have ground level retail and restaurants. Lynnwood Mayor Christine Frizelle says a dog park and movie theatre could be created as well.
“Lynnwood is growing immensely,” Frizelle said, “Our downtown core is just beyond [the station] and we already have a number of developers that are getting ready to get moving on their projects.”
An economic transformation will go along an artistic one as well. Art from Washington artists is featured at each of the four new stations.
“People can feel a sense of pride when that are at their station,” said Rhiannon Kruse with the Lynnwood Arts Commission, “It will be something for them, not just taking the light rail, but to appreciate and feel a sense of community while they’re here.”
The Lynnwood extension is the first major connection to Downtown Seattle as part of a massive build out of light rail, a project Gallagher described as an “integrated regional transit system.” Constantine says the build out expands Sound Transit’s capital projects by nearly five times.
The build out has already hit road bumps, however. Foundational supports near I-90 had to be rebuilt in order to complete the line that will connect Bellevue, Redmond and communities east of Lake Washington with Downtown Seattle. Part of the line is running, but the connection with Seattle isn’t expected until next year.
Constantine says the addition of Terry Mestas as CEO for megaproject delivery will help future projects.
“A lot of the work that I’m doing this term as Board Chair is building that capacity in the agency to be able to deliver.”
Gallagher says the project will finish on time and is expected to be slightly under an amended budget. In 2017, before construction began, the estimate for the project increased from $2.35 billion to $3.05 billion mainly because of increased materials costs, according to a filing with the U.S Department of Transportation.
A street fair will be held in Lynnwood on August 30th to commemorate the first day of expanded Link service, with the first trains running around midday that day.
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