Lynnwood Link light rail extension completes environmental review, will move into final design
Thursday, July 16, 2015
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| Photo courtesy Sound Transit |
Sound Transit has cleared the final steps of the environmental review process for extending light rail from the Northgate neighborhood in Seattle to Lynnwood in Snohomish County. The Federal Transit Administration recently issued its formal Record of Decision (ROD) for the Lynnwood Link light rail extension.
This important milestone completes the environmental review process, prepares the agency to move into the final design phase of the project early next year and takes the project one step closer to anticipated federal grant funding.
With the ROD in hand, Sound Transit can continue the process to compete for the federal funding that is necessary to help pay for the project. As part of that process, Sound Transit will take the next steps toward detailed design work on the 8.5-mile light rail line. The decision keeps the project on track to begin construction in 2018 and open in late 2023.
Trains will run along the I-5 corridor from Northgate to the Lynnwood Transit Center with stations at Northeast 145th Street, Northeast 185th Street and the Mountlake Terrace Transit Center at 236th Street Southwest.
A trip from Lynnwood to downtown Seattle will take 28 minutes.
Lynnwood Link is estimated to carry 63,000-74,000 riders each weekday by 2035.
Sound Transit is also planning for potential future stations at Northeast 130th Street in Seattle and 220th Street Southwest in Mountlake Terrace. The light rail tracks in those areas will be built to accommodate construction of future stations without major impacts to service.
Cost estimates for the project range from $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. A final budget will be established in 2017, with construction scheduled to begin in 2018 and open for service in 2023.
Lynnwood Link is the northernmost project of the more than 30 miles of Sound Transit 2 light rail extensions approved by voters in 2008. By 2023, Sound Transit is on track to open an eastward extension to Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond's Overlake area, and a southward extension to the Kent / Des Moines area. By 2030, Link is expected to carry more than 280,000 riders each weekday.
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8 comments:
This is exciting news. I heard that a group in Shoreline is suing the city because they don't want transit oriented community. That just means they're suing US, the people of Shoreline. Groups like that need to be stopped. We need transit options and this is going to change the city (yes it's a city, not a township) for the better....
Shoreline citizens, the property owners and taxpayers, don't want the massive rezones. The city council does.
Transit does not require these massive rezones.
I can speak for myself as a Shoreline home owner, I do want a rezone. I'm glad the council is taking a bold decision and moving the city forward. Put the growth by a transit hub will make sense as gas prices increase and more people want to move into the area. So Anon at 11:16, don't speak for all taxpayers when here's one that think the city needs to grow to create a real tax base to run a city.
Who said we are against public transportation and options? No one ever!
Thank you for your comment. I have not donated to the law suit effort, but feel compelled to now as a direct result of your remarks. MY lawsuit is to sue the city of shoreline and what poses as leadership. In the absence of leadership the only thing that can be done, not to the residents of shoreline but for the residents of shoreline, is to take legal action. The city has left us no other option.
Get your facts straight before you comment. These citizens are suing because of the rezone not because they are against the light rail. They wouldn't of needed to sue if the city had done proper planing. So maybe you should be mad at the city for wasting your tax dollars.
While some homeowners are happy with the gargantuan rezone, the turnout at City Council meetings, over a period of months, demonstrates that the vast majority of homeowners in the area do not. Yet the City Council, by a slim 4-3 margin, decided that the views of the majority of people affected by their decision do not matter.
As far as the lawsuit goes, the claim is that the City Council didn't take into account a variety of factors that it is required to consider, under the Growth Management Act, when making this type of decision. If that's the case, then it is the City Council and city staff (who are paid to advise the Council) who wasted our tax dollars.
Food for thought.
City posting anonymously content that is questionable at best is a cheap shot and makes all the content in Shoreline Currents suspect. Personally I don't trust anything published anonymously and don't feel it is worth quoting, except in rare cases.
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