Hey guys, welcome back to the channel! Today, we’ll be heading to the west coast, and
cross the border to take a look at the future of rapid transit in the Greater Seattle Area.
Seattle is the largest city in the pacific northwest region of the United States, and
it spans almost 8,186 square miles, or 21,202 kilometers squared in land area, with around
4 million residents in the metropolitan area. With the city being as busy as it is acting
as a home for many of the country’s largest companies, Seattle needs a great rapid transit
system to move its residents around. Today, we’ll show you the current state of Seattle’s
rapid transit system, and give you guys a sneak peak into what to look for in the future
of rapid transit in Seattle.
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First up, let’s take a look at the current state of rapid transit here in the Greater
Seattle Area.
In terms of intercity travel, three Amtrak lines pass through the city, and they all
stop at King Street Station just south of downtown Seattle, the main transit interchange
in the city, which also happens to be the third busiest Amtrak station in the whole country.
The Amtrak Cascades line is one of the train lines that pass through the city, and it runs
from Vancouver, British Columbia, down the Pacific northwest, through Seattle and Portland,
and terminating in the city of Eugene in Oregon.
Amtrak Empire Builder is another one of the train corridors through Seattle, and it travels
across the country, originating from Chicago, and terminating in Seattle and Portland.
And finally, the Amtrak Coast Starlight travels from Seattle all the way down the west coast,
terminating in Los Angeles.
Next up, we’ll take a look at the rapid transit services run by Sound Transit, the
public transit agency that serves the Seattle metropolitan area. The agency was formed in
1993, and it operates regional light rail, commuter rail, as well as express bus services.
Our focus today though is rail rapid transit though, so we’ll leave out Sound Transit
Express for now, but it’s a network of 28 express bus routes that serve the area, primarily
using HOV lanes on highways. For now, we’ll look closer at the two different rail services
provided by Sound Transit.
First up, we have the Sounder, a commuter rail service provided by Sound Transit in
the area. The commuter rail service first started operating in 2000, and it currently
has 2 lines and 12 stations spread over 83 miles, or 134 kilometers of track.
The two lines are the north and the south lines, and they terminate in Everett and Lakewood
respectively, meeting in Seattle at King Street Station, the central station in the city.
Serving the area on weekdays during peak hours, the system receives a respectable amount of
ridership at around 20000 per day, and they’ve also recently started to run trains on weekends
for people to get to Seahawks and Mariners games downtown.
The other Sound Transit service we’ll be talking about today is Link light rail, the
urban metro lines of Seattle and Tacoma. The city had long been struggling to build a metro
system in Seattle with a failed attempt at proposing a heavy rail line system in the
1980s, and it was finally approved in 1996 to build the light rail lines.
The two lines in the system are the Red Line,
also known as the Central Link, which runs in Seattle from downtown to Angle Lake, as
well as the Orange line, also known as the Tacoma link, that runs between downtown Tacoma
and Tacoma Dome. The two lines being in different cities are not connected directly, but they
are linked to each other through the south line of the Sounder. We’ll take a closer
look at the two lines separately now.
The red line is the primary line of the system being located in the busier city of Seattle,
but it’s actually the second line built due to complications with getting the construction
project off the ground, opening in July of 2009. The line connects different interest
points in the city including downtown, University of Washington, the Rainier Valley, as well
as Seattle-Tacoma Airport. And it carries around 80000 riders daily on weekdays with
its 16 stations and 20 miles, or 32 kilometers of track.
The orange line, on the other hand, despite being the elder brother, is a much smaller
system, with only 6 stations, and 1.6 miles, or 2.6 kilometers of track, and it only has
about 2500 riders every day. Tacoma Link uses streetcar style vehicles instead of the multicar
trains on Central Link. The line is free to ride for any passenger with a subsidy from
the city, but that’ll change in the future when the Hilltop extension of the line opens,
which we’ll explore further later in the video.
Alright, so this is the current layout of rapid transit services in Seattle right now.
There is a healthy network of local and regional rail services, but it’s about to get even
better with a number of extensions or new lines about to come to the system.
The future extensions to both the Sounder commuter rail system as well as the Link light
rail system are all thanks to Sound Transit 2 and Sound Transit 3, two ballot measures
passed in 2008 and 2016 respectively that proposed large expansions of the rapid transit
system. The extensions planned in ST2 are almost all
completed with the rest under construction. The extensions planned in ST3 on the other
hand are mostly still in the planning stage, but they would result in 62 miles, or 100
kilometers in new light rail trackage serving 37 new stations, additional stations for the
commuter rail service, and new BRT lines, serving an even wider area. We’ll now start
to go through each extension one by one to give you guys an idea of what’s to come,
and what to look forward to.
First up, we have the Sounder commuter rail extension. This extension will extend the
south line of the commuter rail system south to DuPont via Tillicum. The trackage for the
extension is already in place as part of the Point Defiance Bypass project for Amtrak,
and all that’s left is to collect the $300 million in funding needed, and build the stations,
with a slated completion date of 2036.
Next up, we’ll move on to the extensions to the Link light rail system. We’ll list
these out in order of expected opening date, as well as their current status.
The first one of these is the Northgate Link extension, which will extend the Red Line
north through the University District, the Roosevelt neighbourhood, and terminating in
Northgate, which is a shopping mall and a major transit centre. This extension
will be 3.4 miles or 5.5 kilometers long, and it will include 3 stations. Part of ST2, it’s been
under construction since 2012, and hopefully will open by the expected opening date of
2021.
The next extension is the Hilltop extension, an extension of the Orange Line from Downtown
Tacoma to the Stadium district and the Hilltop neighbourhood. This extension will be 2.4
miles, or 3.9 kilometers long, and it will include 6 different stations, with the line
becoming kind of a U-shape after it’s done. Construction started back in 2018, and it’s
scheduled to be completed by 2022.
Next up, we have a whole new line in the Link light rail system. The Blue Line, also known
previously as the East Link extension, will connect downtown Seattle at International
District/Chinatown east to Downtown Redmond, passing through Mercer Island and Bellevue,
with multiple RapidRide express bus connections along the way. The first phase of the line
will be 14 miles, or 23 kilometers long, serving 10 stations and terminating at Redmond Technology.
Soon after this phase opens, a second phase will follow suit with two extra stations,
finally heading all the way to Downtown Redmond. An interesting fact is that the line will
actually be the world’s first railway constructed on a floating bridge, with the bridge in question
being the I-90 bridge heading into Bellevue. The $3.7 billion dollar project has been under
construction since 2016, and the two phases will open in 2023 and 2024 respectively.
After the Blue Line, we have the Lynnwood link extension, an extension of the red and
blue lines north from Northgate to Lynnwood in Snohomish County, a major transit hub.
The 8.5 mile, or 13.7 kilometer extension will include 4 new stations, and it’s under
construction with an expected opening of 2024.
Next up, we have the Federal Way Link extension, which will extend the Red Line south from
its current terminus of Angle Lake station to the neighbourhood of Federal Way, terminating
at Federal Way Transit Centre. This extension is 7.8 miles, or 12.6 kilometers long, and
it’ll include 3 new stations. It’s currently under final design studies, with construction
expected to start this year in 2020, and an opening date of late 2024.
The next extension builds on what the Federal Way link extension has started, and it’ll
finally connect the two light rail lines together creating a link from Federal Way to Tacoma
Dome. With a length of 15 miles and 24 kilometers, this extension will have 3 new stations, and
it’s expected to open in 2030, currently in the preliminary design stage.
Next up is the West Seattle Link extension, an extension that will create a branch in
the system, from Stadium station southwest to connect to West Seattle at Alaska Junction.
This extension will be 4.7 miles, or 7.6 kilometers long with 3 new stations, and it’s currently
in the initial planning stage with an expected completion date of 2030.
The next extension we’ll talk about is the Ballard Link extension, extending the system
from Westlake north to Ballard. With the introduction of this extension, the red line will be broken
up to introduce a new line in service, which will be called the green line. The *red* line
will cover the stretch between West Seattle and Lynnwood, with the green line taking over
the southern stretch of the line to Tacoma Dome and north up to the new Ballard extension.
This extension is 7.1 miles or 11.4 kilometers long, with 6 stations introduced on the way,
and a new downtown tunnel adjacent to the old downtown tunnel, transferring to the red
line at International District/Chinatown. It’s in the initial planning stage as well,
with an expected completion date of 2035.
The Everett Link extension is next, which extends the red line further north from Lynnwood
to Everett station via Paine Field, the Boeing manufacturing centre in the area. This extension
is 15.4 miles, or 24.8 kilometers long with 7 new stations on the route, and its expected
completion date is in 2036.
Next up we have another extension of the orange line, extending the line west from Hilltop
to Tacoma Community College. The extension will be 3.5 miles, or 5.6 kilometers long
with 6 stations en route, and it’s slated to be open by 2039.
And finally, the last extension currently planned for the link light rail system is
the South Kirkland & Issaquah link extension. This will be a new line in the system, namely
the purple line, and it will first branch off of the blue line in Bellevue and travel
east to downtown Issaquah, with a later extension west to Kirkland in the distant future that
was not part of the ST3 plan. The currently planned portion to Issaquah will be 9 miles,
or 14 kilometers long, with 4 new stations on the route, and it’s slated to open in 2041.
Alright, so this is what the future of rapid transit in the greater Seattle region will
look like, as planned out in Sound Transit 3, with lots of great inter-regional connectivity.
Besides Sound Transit though, there are also other transit agencies running services in
the region, with the most notable being King County Metro, the agency that runs regular
bus services in the region. It also runs the Seattle Streetcar system, which we’ll talk
about briefly right now. Similar to the Link, there are two unconnected lines in the streetcar
system, but these are both in the city of Seattle. The two lines received about 5000
daily riders in 2016, which is fair but definitely pales in comparison to the Link system, as
the routes are extremely short.
The first of these is the South Lake Union streetcar in the eponymous South Lake Union
neighbourhood of the city. It’s 1.3 miles, or 2.1 kilometers long, serving 7 stops along
the route, and connecting from the Westlake transit hub to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center, with transfer to the Link Red Line at Westlake.
The other streetcar line is the First Hill streetcar, which connects Pioneer Square and
Capitol Hill. The line is 2.5 miles, or 3.0 kilometers long, and it’s got 10 stops along
the way, connecting with the red line at both International District/Chinatown and Capitol
Hill, as well as with Amtrak and Sounder trains at King Street Station.
Despite its lower ridership, the streetcar system is still getting a couple of extensions,
although they are both currently on hold due to capital costs rising higher than their
planned budgets.
The first extension is the Center City Connector, which will finally bridge the distance between
the two lines from Westlake to Occidental Mall near King Street Station. The line will
finally mean the connection of a few downtown attractions to the rapid transit system including
the Pike Place Market and the Seattle Art Museum, and is slated to increase ridership
of the network to more than 20000 riders per day. Unfortunately though, There currently
isn’t enough capital to fund the construction of the whole project, but the project can
be completed and opened in 2025 if it ever comes through.
Another extension in the works is the Broadway Streetcar project that would extend the First
Hill streetcar north into the commercial core of Broadway, with two extra stops added to
the line. In 2016, the project was halted due to a lack of support for the design and
the financial plan, but it still seems like it would be a worthwhile addition to the system.
There’s also one more rail service in the city, although quite a small one, and that
is the Seattle Center Monorail. The monorail runs between Seattle Center and Westlake Center
in downtown Seattle, with 0.9 miles, or 1.4 kilometers of track serving only these two
stops. The monorail has been around for a long time now, ever since it opened in 1962,
and it still serves around 5000 riders daily, although most are probably from tourists,
as it’s one of the most iconic landmarks for the city and connects many others as well.
Many projects and plans have been proposed to make the monorail into a complete transit
system for the city, but none of these have made it past the proposal stage, so at the
moment the monorail will remain a tourist attraction with not too much connectivity
to boast.
Alright guys, so this concludes our video on the past, present, and the future of rail
rapid transit in the greater seattle area. Seattle’s transit is shaping up to be quite
an ambitious system, and we can’t wait to see the transformation it’ll bring to the
region. Like, subscribe, and let us know down in the comments which extension you’re most
excited about in this future plan. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and support us
on Patreon and Ko-fi if you would like to help us keep making great videos for you.
Thanks for watching, and we’ll see you in the next one!