Sound Transit boasts 70 percent completion rate on Northgate line
Jan 18, 2019, 1:54 PM | Updated: 1:58 pm
The view looking north from the Roosevelt Station platform. (Glenn Landberg)
(Glenn Landberg)
With a target opening date of 2021, Sound Transit says it is 70 percent through building the Northgate Link Extension, which would give commuters a 14 minute ride between downtown Seattle and north Seattle.
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The transit agency, currently under fire for a land battle at a new Dick’s Drive-In in Kent, says it’s halfway finished installing track to Northgate. The three stations on the line are also at least halfway complete.
Northgate Station is about 70 percent complete, Roosevelt Station is nearing 70 percent, and the University District Station is at about 50 percent.
The north-end extension and three stations is all part of a bigger light rail plane with 116 miles of track, which voters have approved in a series of packages. The entire line was promised to voters by 2041.
Mercer Island, Bellevue, and Redmond’s Overlake neighborhood are expecting light rail by 2023. Service to Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Kent/Des Moines, Federal Way and downtown Redmond is planned to begin in 2024. Following that is West Seattle, Fife and Tacoma in 2030; Ballard in 2035; Paine Field and Everett in 2036; and South Kirkland and Issaquah in 2041.
In May 2018, the Sound Transit Board voted to approve a baseline budget of $3.2 billion for the expansion to Lynnwood. It was originally estimated to cost $2.4 billion. Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff told the board in July 2018 that the Federal Way project is millions over budget.
The cost of the Federal Way extension has now ballooned by $460.3 million. The project is expected to cost $2.549 billion.
Video of Roosevelt Station construction:
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