Any remaining hope of Shoreline opening its new pedestrian bridge over I-5 this winter appear dashed, after the project ran into a snag this month. KIRO reporter Chris Sullivan broke the news on Tuesday, noting builders were delaying the bridge placement that had been slated for November.
“Unfortunately, the contractor has discovered some manufacturing issues with one of the arches,” a City spokesperson told KIRO. “They are currently working with the manufacturer to resolve the issue. At this point, it is unclear if the manufacturer will be able to make corrections on site with the existing arch or if they will have to make a whole new arch. It will be another couple of weeks before they know for sure, and we have a new timeline.”
While Shoreline and its contractor, Kraemer North America, are still determining the extent of the issue, the City is framing it as a minor setback, with a spring 2027 opening still feasible. In fact, the City's project website portrays a spring 2027 opening as essentially the plan all along.
However, that would represent a significant delay from initial plans. In 2020, The Urbanist reported Shoreline was still hoping to open the pedestrian bridge close to concurrently with the light rail station. Lining up funding added planning delays, but an early 2026 opening had still been targeted once the project's $40 million budget had been assembled in 2024, as Urbanist coverage noted at the time.
"While the project was in design we developed an early 2026 opening estimate. Securing final approvals to advertise for construction bids took longer than we anticipated, delaying that step by several months," Shoreline spokesperson Tavia Tan told The Urbanist. "We advertised for bids in December 2024. Once the contractor joined the project, we updated the schedule based on the bridge manufacturer’s production timeline and input from the construction team. Those factors led to an estimate of 'early 2027' for the full bridge opening. Earlier this fall, we revised that projection to spring of 2027, primarily due to delays in procuring materials. This revision occurred before we identified the manufacturing issue."
Shoreline's two light rail stations opened on August 30, 2024, along with the rest of the Lynnwood Link extension. While the City had hoped to open the bridge as close to possible as light rail's arrival, it could end up being close to three years after the fact.
Once the pedestrian bridge is in place, residents in the rapidly densifying neighborhood to the west of I-5, which Shoreline rezoned in 2016, will have direct access to South Shoreline Station without having to head down to the busy overpass at 145th Street – a street that is being supercharged with highway-style roundabouts.
If plans to place the bridge span this month had gone forward, the project still had other hurdles to clear before it could have opened, including completing a direct ramp to the light rail station platform and a trail connection on the west side linking people walking, rolling, and biking to 1st Avenue NE, a corridor which has been among the focal points of midrise development in the area.
The contractor plans to move forward with the trail work while the bridge span issue is being rectified.
"The original construction schedule called for placing the bridge span before building the connecting trail to 1st Avenue NE," Tan said. "The contractor has rearranged the work and is now building the trail. This flexibility allows construction to continue and helps limit delays while we determine the next steps for the bridge."
Sullivan noted a brief night-time freeway closure will be necessary once the bridge span is ready for installation: "You have likely seen the massive structure being built along the west side of the freeway for months. Shoreline had targeted Saturday, Nov. 7, or Saturday, Nov. 14, as the nights to close I-5 and lift the bridge into place. That installation has been delayed, but other work on the project is continuing."
Despite the lack of a pedestrian bridge, both of Shoreline's stations have been success stories, generating robust homebuilding activity and solid initial ridership numbers. Shoreline South averaged more than 3,600 daily boardings in October, boosted by a bus restructure that truncated Sound Transit's Route 522 bus at the station.
Shoreline North hovered around 2,800 daily boardings in September and October. Overall, the 1 Line corridor amassed just over 155,000 daily boardings in October, making it the busiest light rail system in the United States.
The addition of Shoreline's pedestrian bridge and continued residential growth offer a potent combination to build on that momentum.
Ryan Packer
Urbanist Staff
