University of Washington station

University of Washington station

University of Washington is a light rail station in Seattle, Washington. It is the current northern terminus of Line 1, which continues south towards Capitol Hill station and Downtown Seattle. The station was built as part of the University Link Extension, which began construction in 2009 and opened on March 19, 2016. Light rail trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days.

About University of Washington station in brief

Summary University of Washington stationUniversity of Washington is a light rail station in Seattle, Washington. It is the current northern terminus of Line 1, which continues south towards Capitol Hill station and Downtown Seattle. The station was built as part of the University Link Extension, which began construction in 2009 and opened on March 19, 2016. Light rail trains serve the station twenty hours a day on most days; the headway between trains is six minutes during peak periods with reduced frequency at other times. The University of Washington has long-term plans to redevelop its parking lots along Montlake Boulevard into additional office and classroom space, forming the new “East Campus” area. The surrounding area accommodates 15,511 jobs, constituting one of the Seattle region’s major employment centers, as well as 488 residents in Montlake to the south. The train station is located in the parking lot of Husky Stadium, immediately east of the university’s Medical Center. The Northgate Link Extension is scheduled to open in 2021, and will extend Line 1 service through the University District to Northgate. A pedestrian bridge over Montlake Blvd. connects the station to the University of. Washington campus and the Burke-Gilman Trail. A surface alignment through Eastlake was also proposed in the event boring a tunnel through Capitol Hill and under Portage Bay would be too expensive. A study determined the Montlake route was the most-effective and least disruptive and it was endorsed as the most cost-effective in 2001. The study also determined a tunnel under the Ship Canal at University Bridge with a single station at Northeast 45th Street was the least disruptive.

The project was canceled in 2000 after it received higher than expected construction bids that were blamed on a competitive labor market and soil testing that indicated that a deeper tunnel was needed. In November 1996, voters approved a condensed USD 3.9-billion regional transit plan that included a shorter light rail line from theUniversity District to Downtown Seattle and SeaTac. The proposal was rejected by voters in 1995 and replaced with a smaller plan. In 2000, Sound Transit finalized its preferred alignment for the light rail project, which included stations at NE NE 45th street and NE Pacific Street, and included a station at the University Hospital. The new alignment was approved in 2001 and included two stations on the western side of the campus, which would be connected to DowntownSeattle via a Tunnel under Capitol Hill. It would have been connected to the city’s downtown area via a tunnel in the north and a surface alignment in the east. The current alignment of the line was approved for construction in 2003 and the station opened in 2008. The line would have connected to downtown Seattle via Capitol Hill, Ravenna, Eastlake, and Lynnwood. It was also supposed to connect to the Eastside suburbs via the Rainier Vista bridge and the Bayfront Trail. The plan was rejected in 2005 and replaced by a smaller one that included stations in the University Village shopping center and Northeast Pacific Street. In 2008, the University. District was named as a major destination for the system and given two stations atNE Pacific Street and NE45th Street.