By John Kelly
As many cities are beginning to see the economic and social benefits of a Light Rail system, Seattle has recently joined the train transit club. The light rail system began by servicing Downtown Seattle to the rural city of Tukwila in July of 2009. It extended its service to Sea-Tac (the area’s regional international airport) later that year. In 2008, construction began on a new section servicing the University of Washington but there is no exact completion date. Sound Transit, Seattle’s public transportation authority estimates that by 2030, the completed light rail system will take around 115,000 riders off the roads. This will have an incredible impact on the area’s notoriously congested streets and freeways.
Plans for the future include a light rail line through Bellevue, a city neighboring Seattle, as well as an extra 100,000 operational hours. These expansions will further connect citizens of the area to places where they can live, work and play in a fast and economical fashion.
Sound Transit’s website, www.soundtransit.org, features a Trip Planner where riders can enter their start and ending locations as well as their required times of departure and arrival and the Planner will calculate a trip through the transit system catered to their requirements.