Link light rail

Andrew Villeneuve offers recommendations for Redmond eats, activities, and happenings and invites urbanists to Northwest Progressive Institute's Downtown Redmond Link opening day celebration on May 10.

Expectations are high for longtime board member Dow Constantine's new job as Sound Transit CEO. Here's what The Urbanist's newsroom has at top-of-mind in the months ahead.

A newly adopted vision statement and guiding principles set the stage for future negotiations between Issaquah and Sound Transit over what the city's light rail station will look like and whether it will be surrounded by a parking crater or a vibrant, walkable neighborhood.

Dow Constantine will leave his post as King County Executive and take over as Sound Transit's CEO on April 1, after the agency's board of directors approved the hiring in a unanimous vote Thursday. Constantine takes over at a tenuous time, with projects budgets bursting at the seams.

Pinehurst Station construction and downtown tunnel track repairs are bringing disruptions to 1 Line light rail service from now until May 29. The downtown tunnel work will truncate service from April 14 to 23. Plan accordingly.

The Sound Transit Board of Directors revealed today its CEO pick is King County Executive Dow Constantine, who has served on the board for 16 years. Constantine has been a controversial candidate, with some observers seeing a seasoned executive who helped build the agency and others a borderline case of nepotism.

A decades-long planned Link infill station in North Tukwila is set to move into environmental review with a single alternative recommended by Sound Transit staff. The recommended alternative forsakes a long standing objective to connect with Sounder and leaves the station relatively isolated.

As Sound Transit builds the largest light rail expansion in the country, splitting the system into urban and suburban lines could unlock its full potential and queue up logical extensions.