We can make that intermodal connection to ferries, a good multimodal car-free one,” Hopkins said. “If you’re going to connect… Edmonds is hard to reach, unless you have a car. Currently transit options to the Edmonds ferry aren’t great. The logic behind linking downtown Edmonds to the Aurora Line through Seattle and Shoreline and sending it onto Lynnwood also has much to do with strong transit connections to the Edmonds-Kingston ferry, which is the primary link to the northern half of the Kitsap Peninsula and the Olympic Peninsula beyond. “We want to reinforce communities that have dense, walkable downtowns and are making the right urban plans Edmonds is fantastic for that,” Hopkins said. Edmonds’ efforts to pedestrianize its main street were not lost on him. One of Seattle Subway’s goals, Hopkins said, is to support urbanizing downtowns around the region. With rising housing prices increasingly pushing BIPOC folks to the south, the Green Line could provide connectivity to communities displaced from their traditional homes and cultural centers in Seattle’s Central Area, Chinatown-International District, and the Rainier Valley. Meanwhile, adding stations in Kubota Garden, Skyway, Downtown Renton, and Renton Landing to the Green Line branch would unite the Rainier Valley with rapid transit service, which would be unprecedented. The express Purple Line through Georgetown would be much more direct than the existing Rainier Valley route, providing people who live in Tukwila and south of the city a much faster option to commute to Seattle. Those new light rail lines will have the effect of trimming multiple hours per week off the commutes of transit-dependent populations in South King County, Hopkins said.
Uw light rail route update#
The 2021 update keeps most of the core of the planned system, but tweaks the Aurora Line northern tail. “And we envision that as a sooner rather than later thing.”
![uw light rail route uw light rail route](https://www.cptdb.ca/wiki/images/a/a2/Sound_Transit_Link_Light_Rail_Map_2019.png)
“One of the most amazingly equitable things we could do is build a south direct line express through South Park and Georgetown and then have that Rainier Valley line have 50% of the trains go through the Rainier Valley to Renton,” Hopkins said. One focus of the new map is improving connections in South King County, where low-income and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities are concentrated in the region. Hopkins is picking up right where his predecessor left off, laying out a bold vision for rapid transit expansion. Seattle Subway also has a new executive director this year with Keith Kyle stepping aside and political director Jonathan Hopkins promoted to take over Kyle’s role. With King County projected to add 1.8 million residents by 2050, this kind of ambition might be warranted.
![uw light rail route uw light rail route](https://seattletransitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ST_Link-RGB-Lines.png)
![uw light rail route uw light rail route](https://c1.staticflickr.com/3/2825/32817321103_b729e8b12a_b.jpg)
This allows Seattle to more than double the number of urban centers and urban villages connected, jumping from 13 of 30 in ST3 to 27 of 30 in the new map, Seattle Subway said. It takes a light rail system, already planned to reach 116 miles after Sound Transit 3 (ST3) is built out, well past 200 miles, with at least 36 of those additional miles in Seattle. In all, Seattle Subway’s vision is for seven light rail lines creating a broad network stretching from Everett College in the north to Tacoma Mall in the south and from Edmonds east to Woodinville. This year, their new map includes some interesting tweaks, such as a new line through Skyway and Renton, and extending the Aurora line to connect at Lynnwood City Center Station, which opens in 2024. Each year Subway has updated their vision map to reflect new realities and ideas. Since 2012, Seattle Subway has been envisioning a world class rapid transit system for the Seattle region and advocating for that vision.