Let’s remember when Link Light Rail made its way to SeaTac Airport, on this day in 2009 (December 19)
I think it’s quite a milestone to celebrate the one thing to happen in the past ten years that has actually made air travel easier for people.
According to HistoryLink and Priscilla Long:
On December 19, 2009, Sound Transit’s Link light rail connecting Seattle with Sea-Tac International Airport reaches SeaTac/Airport Station. The inaugural ribbon-cutting attended by some 500 celebrants takes place before the station opens at 10 a.m., at which time trains begin regular service. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels (b. 1955) does the honors of cutting the ceremonial ribbon with an oversized pair of scissors. Speakers praising this long-awaited infrastructural improvement to the region include Port of Seattle Commissioner John Creighton, U.S. Representatives Adam Smith (b. 1965) and Jim McDermott (b. 1936), King County Executive Dow Constantine (b. 1961), and Seattle City Councilmember Jan Drago. The first 14 miles of light rail between downtown Seattle and the Tukwila/International Boulevard Station had opened the previous July. The extension from Tukwila to the airport is 1.7 miles long.
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With the opening of the SeaTac/Airport Station, Link light rail, built at a cost of $2.57 billion, ran from Seattle’s Westlake Center to the airport, with 13 stops serving downtown, SODO, Beacon Hill, Mount Baker, Columbia City, Othello, Rainier Beach, Tukwila, and the airport. The ride took about 36 minutes and the one-way fare was $2.50.
The Link line from downtown to Sea-Tac was part of the initial Sound Transit system approved by King, Pierce, and Snohomish County voters in 1996, which also included the Tacoma Link light rail that opened in 2003, Sounder commuter trains between Seattle and Tacoma and Seattle and Everett, and express bus service. Even before Link opened to the airport, construction was underway on the final light-rail segment approved in 1996, from downtown Seattle to the University District, and plans were in progress for further extensions of the light-rail system.
The next new Link light-rail stations opened a little more than six years after the celebration at the airport. On Saturday, March 19, 2016, Sound Transit celebrated the extension of light rail from Westlake Station to the University of Washington with the opening of stations on Capitol Hill and at the south end of the UW campus, near Husky Stadium and the Montlake Bridge. Six months later, on Saturday, September 24, the opening of the Angle Lake Station extended the line another 1.6 miles south beyond the SeaTac/Airport Station that had opened in 2009. Within weeks, the Link light rail, now 21 miles long, topped 100,000 riders in a day for the first time. The next light rail extension — from the University of Washington Station near the stadium to Northgate — was scheduled to open in 2021.
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