Get ready, Seattle: You're about to be a light-rail town

July 12, 2009 - Seattle Times By Mike Lindblom

At last, Seattle is about to become a light-rail town. On Saturday, the first passengers will board the Sound Transit trains from Westlake Center through Rainier Valley to Tukwila — and behind them is nearly a century of failed proposals to build a big transit system through Seattle.

On Saturday, the first passengers will board the Sound Transit trains from Westlake Center through Rainier Valley to Tukwila — putting behind them nearly a century of failed proposals to build a big transit system through Seattle.

The initial $2.3 billion, 14-mile segment took five years to build and was filled with engineering challenges and political suspense.

The project features a unique deep station within the soft soils of Beacon Hill, and the nation's only tunnel where buses and trains share the same stations — downtown. Managers coped with toxic soil, sinkholes, street protests seeking more jobs for African Americans and a couple of minor train-car collisions.

One worker died in a supply-train crash during Beacon Hill tunneling. That stretch was so difficult that it left no time to spare in the final construction schedule, and it spooked transit-board members into canceling a deep station they had promised for First Hill.

"Light-rail years are like cat years," said Ahmad Fazel, director of the stressful light-rail effort.

On the upside, the project provided more than 4,000 short- and long-term jobs. And trains will serve riders every 7 ½ minutes at peak times. Two more miles open later this year to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

But the line is four to six times costlier than other light-rail startups in western states. And with an estimated 26,600 average weekday trips predicted next year, the trains often will appear mostly empty, like the South Lake Union streetcar.

Ridership should grow by 2016, when a tunnel to Capitol Hill and Husky Stadium lets students and employees from the south suburbs ride 19 miles from the airport to the University of Washington campus. Eventually, it will connect to north Federal Way, Overlake and Lynnwood in a 53-mile network that Sound Transit says will attract 280,000 daily trips in 2030.