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Welcome to the spring edition of Sound Transit’s Commute Trip Reduction newsletter where we feature the latest service-related information — as well as a few project highlights — for you to share with your employees or professional network.
Safety is a core value at Sound Transit. Since the start of the pandemic, we have been working hard to keep our riders and workers safe. Since last May, in accordance with directives from local authorities, we have required masks on all Sound Transit vehicles. In light of a new federal mandate for mask-wearing on transit and in transit facilities, Sound Transit is taking additional steps as part of our commitment to safety. Starting now, you will begin seeing mask dispensers on all Sound Transit vehicles. Dispensers have already been available on some ST Express buses, and all buses will have them in the coming weeks. We are also adding dispensers on Link light rail vehicles and Sounder trains. The dispensers will make it easy for everyone to have a mask.
Sound Transit continues to adjust service as part of the March service change. Some ST Express routes will have updated schedules to meet rider demand and/or travel time adjustments to better reflect current traffic levels. In addition, Route 577 will operate along a new alignment in downtown Seattle; Route 586 will start serving the Federal Way Transit Center, and Route 595 will add a stop at Tacoma Dome Station. Link light rail will continue to operate every 12-15 minutes, but schedules will shift slightly due to operator scheduling constraints.
Check out route-specific information at soundtransit.org/servicechange. If you’d like to request printed schedules or a full printed PDF of the Ride the Wave guide, please call 800-201-4900/TTY: 711.
Are you willing and interested in drawing connections between racial equity, transportation issues and access to opportunities? Join the East Link Connections Mobility Board!
The East Link Connections Mobility Board is a co-led process for improving transit connections throughout the Eastside, Mercer Island and the Judkins Park neighborhood as Link light rail service expands through 2024. We encourage community members who live, work and travel within east King County and surrounding communities to apply and advise Metro and Sound Transit about our bus service plans and our community outreach process. This is a paid volunteer leadership opportunity.
We strongly encourage people with the following identities and lived experiences to apply: Black, Indigenous, and people of color; immigrants and refugees; linguistically diverse; low-income or no-income; people with disabilities.
Applications are available in English, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Russian, Vietnamese, Hindi and Tagalog. We will accept applications through March 31.
If you have questions or would prefer that we email or mail an application to you, please contact the East Link Connections team at servicechanges@soundtransit.org or (206) 263-1939.
We're always working to improve our website and provide enhanced experiences, and we rely on user feedback to inform our decisions. We've reintroduced schedule pages to provide more information than currently available on our homepage “widget” view. This allows us to provide more robust information about routes and schedules. We’ve also completely redeveloped our stop and station information from the ground up to integrate with regional transit data. Try the new tools, compare them to the old tools and let us know what you think!
Sound Transit will be expanding our light rail train fleet in the coming years to support future Link extensions to Tacoma and throughout the region. To receive these new electric trains, we first need to build a new facility in South King County: the Operations and Maintenance Facility South.
The OMF South is where Link trains will go for cleaning, storage and care, and it will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Once complete, the project will create more than 470 high-skilled, living-wage jobs in South King County. At our existing OMF, the average employee wage is more than $40 per hour, or $80,000 per year.
Community input is vital to this project. On March 5, Sound Transit published the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the OMF South, which officially kicked off a 45-day comment period that runs through April 19. A Draft EIS is an important milestone in determining where we build a project. The OMF South Draft EIS analyzes three potential sites: the Midway Landfill, South 344th Street and South 336th Street alternatives.
To support the Draft EIS public comment period, Sound Transit is also hosting two online public meetings on March 24 and March 30. These online meetings are a great opportunity to get a project update, ask technical questions of the experts and register your formal comment. We invite you to visit our online open house to learn more about the Draft EIS, register for the public meetings and share your feedback.
No matter where you live, you’ve probably noticed some Sound Transit construction lately, because we’re on schedule to nearly triple the regional light rail network within the next four years! We’ll launch Link service to Northgate this fall, Tacoma’s Hilltop neighborhood next year, the Eastside in 2023, and to Lynnwood, Federal Way and Downtown Redmond in 2024.
But the pandemic recession and increasing construction and real estate costs will have a major impact on other transit expansion projects still in planning phases, including more Link extensions, Sounder train projects, new Stride bus rapid transit and more. Through a process called realignment, the Sound Transit Board of Directors is working to determine how plans and timelines for many of these voter-approved projects will need to change to address these financial pressures.
King County Metro recently launched an online Reduced Fare Portal. Customers with lower incomes, seniors and people with disabilities can use the portal to get answers to their transit questions and apply for an ORCA Regional Reduced Fare Permit card or an ORCA Lift card. In the past, most applications required completion either in person or by mail.
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