Sound Transit advances Lynnwood Link design plans

Sound Transit yesterday issued a formal notice to proceed on the $73.7 million final design contract for its 8.5-mile Lynnwood Link light-rail extension.

The contract previously was awarded to HNTB Jacobs Trusted Design Partners, which comprises HNTB Corp. and Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.

Expected to have a weekday ridership of 74,000 by 2035, the Lynnwood project is the northernmost portion of the more than 30 miles of light-rail extensions approved by voters in the 2008 Sound Transit 2 ballot initiative, agency officials said in a press release.

The Lynnwood line will run north from the Northgate Link extension that is under construction and slated to open in 2021. The new route will provide 28-minute trips between Seattle and Lynnwood, Wash.

In February, the project received approval from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) to move into final engineering work. Additionally, the line is up for a $1.2 billion grant through the FTA's New Starts program.

The Lynnwood extension is slated to cost $1.5 billion to $1.7 billion. However, in its request for federal funding, Sound Transit also included other elements to support the extension, such as 34 new light-rail vehicles and a portion of a new maintenance facility. These added features would bring the total project cost to $2.3 billion, agency officials said. 

A map of the Lynnwood Link extension's alignment
(Click to view larger.)
Source: Sound Transit's December 2015 fact sheet on the Lynnwood Link project