Sound Transit on Saturday launched full 2 Line service across Lake Washington, completing the first light rail connection between Seattle and the Eastside. The Crosslake Connection — the world’s first light rail line on a floating bridge — adds stations at Judkins Park and Mercer Island, extending the 2 Line from downtown Redmond through Bellevue and north to Lynnwood. The regional network now spans 50 stations across 63 miles.

Tens of thousands of riders turned out Saturday, with the line at Judkins Park stretching nearly a mile along the I-90 Trail. Downtown Bellevue and Seattle’s Chinatown-International District are now a 20-minute ride apart, with trains running every 10 minutes.

The Route

The 2 Line runs from Downtown Redmond through the Microsoft campus at Overlake, the Spring District, downtown Bellevue, and South Bellevue, then crosses the I-90 floating bridge to Mercer Island and Judkins Park before continuing north through downtown Seattle to Northgate, Shoreline, and Lynnwood. It connects to the 1 Line at Chinatown-International District, adding frequency on shared segments.

King County Metro, Sound Transit Express, and Community Transit restructured bus routes on the same day to feed the new stations. Riders who previously needed a two-bus commute across the lake now have a single-seat ride.

Construction History

Voters funded the East Link project through the ST2 ballot measure in November 2008, with an original opening target of 2023. Construction required novel engineering — crews bonded roughly 9,000 concrete plinths to the floating bridge deck with industrial adhesive, since drilling would have compromised the structure’s integrity. Quality defects in those plinths forced demolition and rebuilding of large sections, pushing the opening three years to 2026.

Who It Serves

The 2 Line was designed to serve the region’s fastest-growing employment corridor. Microsoft oriented its Redmond campus expansion around the Overlake Village station. Bellevue has approved thousands of new housing units near its downtown stops. At Judkins Park, residents told KUOW they chose their apartment for rail proximity — replacing $30-per-day parking and 20-to-30-minute bus transfers with a direct ride across the lake.

The line also changes daily math for the roughly 70,000 workers who cross Lake Washington each direction on I-90 and SR-520. For those near a station, the 20-minute Bellevue-to-Seattle trip now costs a transit fare instead of bridge tolls and garage fees.

What’s Next

Saturday’s opening delivered one piece of the transit package voters approved. The rest faces a widening gap between commitments and revenue. Sound Transit has disclosed a $30 to $40 billion funding shortfall in its ST3 capital program, prompting an agency-wide reassessment called the Enterprise Initiative. The West Seattle and Ballard light rail extensions, approved by voters in 2016, face possible delays or scope reductions. A downtown Seattle tunnel is under scrutiny. The board is expected to present revised ST3 scenarios later this year.