Sound Transit’s Federal Way Link extension 63% complete but Tacoma connection slows

Despite a construction setback, the 7.8-mile extension of Link light rail from Angle Lake to Federal Way closes out 2022 well past the halfway mark. Meanwhile, work for the planned extension between Federal Way and Tacoma is bogged down.

The $2.54 billion Federal Way Link Extension is now 63 percent complete, according to Sound Transit. The public will begin riding it sometime in 2025, according to David Jackson, a Sound Transit spokesperson.

When it’s operational, passengers boarding in Federal Way will be able to reach Sea-Tac International Airport in 15 minutes and downtown Seattle in 46 minutes.

Summer slide

In August, Sound Transit announced that unstable soil had caused an approximately 200-foot-long portion of an embankment supporting Interstate 5 in Kent near South 259th Place to slide nine feet down slope.

After an analysis, Sound Transit decided that the best remedy would be to build a long span bridge over the unstable soil. That new section, called structure C, pushed the line’s original opening date in late 2024 to sometime in 2025.

Stations and garages

The Federal Way extension adds three stations to the system: Federal Way Downtown (at South 320th Street), South 272nd Street (formerly Star Lake Park & Ride) and Kent/Des Moines (near Highline College).

The Kent/Des Moines parking structure and adjacent station were beginning to resemble their final forms this week as workers welded beams and ran electrical conduits.

“We completed the vast majority of our concrete work this year,” said Sound Transit’s Nathan Monroe, the principal construction manager for the project. “We got all the stations and garages up and running.”

This week, the 7.8-mile route ranged from bare earth to finished-looking elevated track, called guideways. The northern-most guideway was connected to the end of the current line just south of the Angle Lake station in 2022. The ground-level installation of tracks will go quickly, Monroe said.

Cash infusion

In 2022, $320 million worth of construction was completed, according to Sound Transit, including the completion of the guideway across South 320th Street in Federal Way, where the extension will end.

Last week, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell announced $583 million from an Omnibus Appropriations Bill would fund both the Federal Way extension ($329 million) and Lynnwood extension ($254 million) in 2023.

Cantwell said the project is now fully funded three years ahead of schedule.

Route to Tacoma

In roughly a decade, the next extension will take light rail to Tacoma from Federal Way. Preliminary work on that $3.3 billion project is going slowly.

This week, Sound Transit said the project is experiencing delays that will push back the release of the draft environmental impact statement (EIS), originally scheduled for publication in 2022.

“In this current phase, we’ll continue with more conceptual design work, including refinements to route and station alternatives,” Jackson said.

Any delays to the Tacoma extension construction timeline have not yet been determined, he said. In late 2021, Sound Transit said construction would begin in 2026 with an opening in 2032. The extension will add four stations to the system and take passengers from Tacoma to the airport in 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, a new operations and maintenance facility (OMF) that will be built south of the Federal Way station on the route to Tacoma is also experiencing delays.

“Ongoing design efforts have taken longer than originally projected,” Jackson said.

The OMF maintains, cleans and stores trains. The site, south of South 336th Street and west of I-5, would necessitate building an additional one-mile-long line south from the end of the tracks at South 320th Street. That section of track would eventually become part of the Tacoma Link extension. The facility is scheduled to open in 2029, ahead of the extension to Tacoma.

The final EIS for that project will be published sometime after mid-2023, Sound Transit said.

Coming in 2023

By the end of 2023, stations and parking garages and most of the Federal Way line will look finished, Monroe said. A notable exception will be structure C, the section spanning the unstable soil in Kent.

Less noticeable will be electrical and communications work along the line and between stations.

Monroe doesn’t know when testing of the line will begin. Little can be done until structure C is finished.

509 extension

On Wednesday, a neighborhood hen greeted Monroe near the northern end of the project at South 211th Street in SeaTac. The Angle Lake Station — the most southerly on the operational system — is just 3,700 feet to the north.

Beyond the free ranging chicken and adjacent to the rails was a deep cut that marks the future path of the state Route 509 completion project.

Travelers on I-5 in 2022 have seen construction begin along the freeway’s northbound lanes in the area of South 216th Street. An overpass and ramps are under construction for the project. The four-lane expressway will run between I-5 and SR 509’s current terminus near Sea-Tac Airport.

Set to open in 2028, the 509 extension is part of the 167 Completion Project which began construction in Pierce County in 2022. Together, they form WSDOT’s $2.38 billion Puget Sound Gateway Program. It’s designed to make freight connections between SeaTac, the Port of Tacoma and the Kent Valley easier.

The 509 extension will also provide a new route to the airport for travelers from points south.