Sound Transit towed a light rail train across the I-90 floating bridge between Mercer Island and Judkins Park stations Wednesday, a major milestone for the long-delayed connection between Seattle and the Eastside. It marks the first phase of system integration testing before service can begin on the full 2 Line, including the delayed segment between the International District and South Bellevue.
The “unpowered LRV tow” comes on the heels of the news that riders won’t be able to step foot on trains crossing the lake until early next year, at the earliest. Until then, the 2 Line will operate only on the Eastside, without connecting to Seattle and or serving mothballed stations in Mercer Island and Seattle’s Judkins Park.
Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine first announced the delay at a board meeting on May 8. The opening slipping from late 2025 to early 2026 isn’t a major schedule change on paper, but represents a big symbolic setback for one of the region’s most hotly anticipated transit projects. The 2 Line was originally pledged to open in 2020 in the 2008 “ST2” ballot measure that funded it — before the project was beset with a series of delays in both planning and construction.
As The Urbanist reported last year, opening the line in 2025 was always going to be a heavy lift for Sound Transit, given the fact that almost all of the additional schedule padding available to handle unforeseen events had already been exhausted.
Right now, Sound Transit is planning around a January 16 grand opening date — but achieving that date is heavily dependent on how the next few months go, as the agency conducts robust testing on the first light rail line to cross a floating bridge anywhere in the world. After the unpowered LRV tow, the next major phase of testing will be live wire testing, expected by July. If all goes well, trains will enter pre-revenue service testing — running empty along the full line — by late summer.
After discovering significant construction defects along the entire segment between South Bellevue and Downtown Seattle in 2022, Sound Transit continues to run into unexpected issues, most recently with a number of the bolt connectors anchoring the tracks to their concrete support structures along the I-90 bridge. In a blog post released this week, Sound Transit emphasized it’s focusing on getting everything right before opening the full line.
Among the other unique considerations for this segment is the electrical systems, which have to be managed in a way that doesn’t cause damage to the state-owned floating bridge structure.
“Since there are many new, complex systems on the bridge structure, we’re going to be realistic about the time it will take to complete the work. We know that additional, focused time during this critical phase of the project will have a positive effect on future performance,” the agency stated in its post. “Given what we’ve learned in recent months about how we can (and must) improve service reliability and systemwide resilience, we’re committed to stress-testing the system and validating a series of different operating scenarios before opening the line for service. On a unique segment such as the floating bridge, this also means additional layers of testing and commissioning compared to other projects.”
A January or February opening next year puts the 2 Line’s opening squarely within the same timeframe as the planned extension of the 1 Line to Federal Way, currently pegged at a mid-March opening. Even though both segments may be fully ready to go, Sound Transit will have to decide which segment to prioritize, with FIFA Men’s World Cup events bearing down on the region that summer.
Extending the 2 Line to Lynnwood will unlock significant transit capacity in Seattle’s urban core that will aid visitors by doubling frequency north of the International District — and integrating the agency’s Bellevue train base into the broader system. On the flip side, the extension to Federal Way stretches capacity, since it doesn’t add a train base but will entail trains spending more time traversing a longer 1 Line instead of turning back at Angle Lake, like they do now. That could mean slightly lower frequencies across the system.
While the 2 Line on the Eastside now extends from South Bellevue to Downtown Redmond, trains continue to stop running at 9:30pm, limiting the utility of the line. Though, Sound Transit recently announced special late-night service for concerts at Marymoor Park. Once the line crosses the lake, the span-of-service will increase to match the existing 1 Line, and the number of cars on every train will increase to add more capacity.
Once that finally happens, King County Metro will reconfigure bus routes across the entire Eastside to better utilize the new high-capacity connection to Seattle.
With the whole region clamoring to finally be able to ride a Link train across Lake Washington, the additional delays are frustrating to many, but this week’s test emphasizes the fact that progress is indeed being made.
Ryan Packer has been writing for The Urbanist since 2015, and currently reports full-time as Contributing Editor. Their beats are transportation, land use, public space, traffic safety, and obscure community meetings. Packer has also reported for other regional outlets including Capitol Hill Seattle, BikePortland, Seattle Met, and PubliCola. They live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle.
