USA: The Sound Transit board has selected a site in Bellevue’s Bel-Red corridor between downtown Bellevue and Redmond for a $380m light rail operations and maintenance satellite facility. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2018 for opening in 2020.
The depot will be designed to maximise the potential for transit-oriented development in the vicinity, incorporating recommendations from the Urban Land Institute and local stakeholders seeking to provide development opportunities in the area.
Sound Transit expects its light rail vehicle fleet to triple from 62 to 184 vehicles by 2030, as it opens more than 30 stops and predicts traffic to grow to more than 280 000 passengers/day by 2030. The current operations and maintenance facility in Seattle is expected to reach its capacity of 104 LRVs by 2020.
