Downtown Redmond light rail lines officially open to much fanfare

REDMOND, Wash. — Nearly nine years after voters approved the funding, Link Line 2 opens in Downtown Redmond with hundreds of families, transit enthusiasts and people who worked on the line taking some of the first rides.

“I love trains,” Zereline Mukherjee said while she rode the inaugural train out of Downtown Redmond, “I’ve been looking forward to this line opening so I can go to Bellevue and not have to drive through all the traffic. It’s amazing.”

About 70% of voters in Redmond supported the regional tax increase that helped fund the line in 2016. The opening ends a long wait for Mukherjee.

“I’m relieved. I’ve been in Redmond for 20-plus years and I think it’s great.” she said.

For David, it ends years of hard work that he personally spent as part of the thousands of workers who built the final 3.4 miles to connect two stations to Downtown Bellevue.

“It’s a big milestone for the region. A lot of hard work and effort by a lot of different people is what makes this exciting.” he said.

Sound Transit reports the $1.2 billion cost of the project came in under budget. It estimates a 25-minute travel time from Downtown Redmond to South Bellevue. Housing developments have sprouted around the final station of Line 2.

“Today’s opening is one more visual indicator of our transition from a suburb to a city,” said Redmond mayor Angela Birney.

Several speakers at the ribbon-cutting asked when the next ground-breaking will be for the multi-billion dollar regional expansion of Link Service across King, Pierce and Snohomish Counties. First, some other projects need to finish, like the connection of Line 2 to Line 1 in Seattle’s Chinatown-International District.

“I go often to Seattle and the biggest problem is parking and paying the toll and sitting in traffic. I don’t mind sitting on the train,” Mukherjee said.

Sound Transit expects testing across the floating bridge of Lake Washington to begin within the next calendar month. It’s targeting 2026 for the opening of that connection, and the opening of the Line 1 extension into Federal Way.