University of Washington is a light rail station in Seattle, Washington, located on the University of Washington campus. The station is served by Sound Transit's Link light rail system and is the terminus of the Central Link line, which continues south towards Capitol Hill station and Downtown Seattle. University of Washington station is located at the intersection of Montlake Boulevard Northeast and Northeast Pacific Street, adjacent to Husky Stadium and the University of Washington Medical Center
The station consists of an island platform under street level, connected to a surface entrance by elevators and escalators. It also includes a pedestrian bridge over Montlake Boulevard connecting to the University of Washington campus and the Burke-Gilman Trail. University of Washington station was built as part of the University Link Extension, which began construction in 2009 and opened on March 19, 2016. Light rail trains serve the station 20 hours a day on most days; the headway between trains is 6 minutes during peak periods, with less frequent service at other times. The station is served by a major bus hub with King County Metro and Sound Transit Express bus routes that connect the University District to the Eastside region.
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Location
University of Washington station is located at the intersection of Montlake Boulevard Northeast and Northeast Pacific Street in the University District of northern Seattle. The station itself is situated in the parking lot of Husky Stadium, home to the Washington Huskies football team, and is immediately east of the University of Washington Medical Center. The University of Washington campus is to the northwest of University of Washington station, accessible via Rainier Vista, the Burke-Gilman Trail, and Northeast Pacific Street. The area around the station includes 15,511 jobs, constituting one of the Seattle region's major employment centers, as well as a small population of 488 residents in Montlake to the south. It is connected to the Montlake neighborhood by the Montlake Bridge, carrying Montlake Boulevard towards a junction with State Route 520, a major east-west freeway connecting Seattle to the Eastside suburbs. The station area is also within a short driving distance of the University Village shopping center and Seattle Children's Hospital. The University of Washington plans to redevelop its parking lots along Montlake Boulevard into additional office and classroom space, due to their proximity to the station.
University Of Washington Parking Video
History
Background and planning
The University of Washington moved from its downtown campus to the north side of Portage Bay in 1895, later expanding during the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909, which was hosted at the site. Urban planner Virgil Bogue's rejected 1911 comprehensive plan for Seattle envisioned a citywide subway system, including a line serving the east side of the university campus and connected to Ravenna and eastern Capitol Hill. The Forward Thrust Committee's planned regional rapid transit system, rejected by voters in 1968 and 1970, included a subway station at the University Hospital near Husky Stadium, with trains continuing south through Capitol Hill to Downtown Seattle. A 1986 regional transit plan from the Puget Sound Council of Governments proposed a light rail line through the University District, including a station at the University Hospital, continuing on through Eastlake to Downtown Seattle.
In the 1990s, a regional transit authority (later Sound Transit) was formed to build a light rail system for the Seattle metropolitan area. The University District was named as a major destination for the system, with two stations at NE Pacific Street and NE 45th Street on the western side of the university campus, and would be connected to Downtown Seattle via a tunnel under Capitol Hill. The $6.7 billion proposal, including a light rail line continuing north from the University District to Northgate and Lynnwood, was rejected by voters in 1995 and replaced with a smaller plan. In November 1996, a condensed $3.9 billion regional transit plan was approved by voters, including a shorter light rail line from the University District to Downtown Seattle and SeaTac. A surface alignment through Eastlake was also proposed in the event that tunnel boring through Capitol Hill and under Portage Bay would be too expensive. Sound Transit finalized its preferred alignment for the light rail project in 1999, including stations at NE Pacific Street and NE 45th Street.
Sound Transit suspended planning for the Portage Bay tunnel in 2000 after it received construction bids that were $171 million higher than expected and found, through soil testing, that a deeper tunnel would be required. Sound Transit, faced with budget issues and further schedule delays, deferred construction of the segment between Downtown Seattle and the University District in 2001 while re-evaluating alignment options. The alternatives were narrowed to two finalists in early 2002: a tunnel under the Ship Canal at University Bridge, with a single station at Northeast 45th Street; and a tunnel under the Montlake Cut and a station near Husky Stadium, as well as a Northeast 45th Street station. The Montlake route was determined by a Sound Transit study to be the most cost-effective, and endorsed by the University of Washington as the least disruptive to its research buildings. It was confirmed as the new alignment for the Link light rail project in 2004 by the Sound Transit Board, including an underground station at Husky Stadium with a subterranean pedestrian connection to the campus. The $1.9 billion "University Link" project received final approval from Sound Transit and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) in 2006, with the Husky Stadium station as the northern terminus.
Under the plan approved in 2006, the Husky Stadium station would have three entrances, connected via underground walkways or overpasses: on the east side of Montlake Boulevard adjacent to Husky Stadium; on the north side of Pacific Place on the Burke-Gilman Trail; and on the west side of Montlake Boulevard near the University of Washington Medical Center. In 2007, the Seattle Design Commission recommended an overpass to cross Montlake Boulevard in lieu of the underground walkway, and Sound Transit updated the station's design plan accordingly with a bridge on the north side of the Rainier Vista triangle. The University of Washington unveiled its plans to redevelop the Rainier Vista triangle into a landscaped park, with a land bridge over Pacific Place, and requested that Sound Transit connect the station through a mid-block crosswalk instead of the bridge. The mid-block crosswalk was rejected by the FTA, and a compromise pedestrian overpass connecting to the center of the Rainier Vista triangle was adopted in 2011.
The station was named "University of Washington" in 2012, leading to confusion with the existing University Street station in Downtown Seattle and the planned "U District" station to the west of the campus, scheduled to open in 2021. Other suggested names included "Montlake", "Husky Stadium", and "UW Medical Center".
Construction and opening
The University Link project received a $813 million grant from the federal government in January 2009, allowing for it to move towards final design and construction. A groundbreaking ceremony was held at the future University of Washington station on March 6, 2009, marking the start of construction. Utility relocation and site preparation at the station had already began in February and continued until August, consisting of the demolition and replacement of facilities at Husky Stadium, including two ticket offices, a concessions kitchen, and restrooms. A new access road around Husky Stadium was built and part of the stadium's parking lot was closed and fenced off in early 2010.
Excavation of the station box began in June 2010, along with shoring installation and jet grouting of the soil. The platform level, at a depth of 100 feet (30 m), was reached in late February 2011, allowing for concrete pouring to commence. The project's two tunnel boring machines arrived at University of Washington station for assembly in April 2011 and were dedicated by local and state politicians on May 16. The tunnel boring machines were launched in June and July towards Capitol Hill station, arriving in spring 2012. Station box excavation was completed in June 2012, and contractors Hoffman Construction Company moved on to steel erection and pouring of the station's upper levels.
Station construction reached street level in late 2012, with structural elements of the headhouse and Montlake Boulevard overpass being installed. The station's basic structure was completed in early 2014, and landscaping and road access around the entrance was restored while finishing work continued underground. The station and overpass were declared substantially complete in November 2014, with above-ground finishes remaining. The University of Washington completed work on the Rainier Vista triangle in July 2015, and the Montlake Boulevard overpass opened to the public later that month.
University of Washington station opened on March 19, 2016, during a community celebration that drew 67,000 people to it and Capitol Hill station; the two stations opened six months ahead of schedule. The following week, several bus routes in Northeast Seattle were redirected to feed the new station as part of a major restructure of service brought on by the cancellation of downtown express routes from the University District. By the end of the year, the station was averaging 9,300 daily boardings, placing second among Link stations for ridership. University of Washington station will serve as the northern terminus of the Central Link line until 2021, when an extension to Northgate Transit Center is planned to open. Tunnel boring from U District station, located northwest of the university campus, to the station was completed in September 2016.
Station layout
University of Washington station consists of a single, 380-foot-long (120 m) island platform located 95 feet (29 m) below street level. The station was designed to accommodate large crowds headed to and from Husky Stadium, with a platform capacity of 1,600 people. The station has a large, open mezzanine level split between two stories and requiring a change of escalators. The upper mezzanine contains ticket vending machines and passenger information, and is decorated with ceramic tiles and fixtures with green and yellow accents. The entrance is contained in a two-story glass building, the upper level of which leads directly to a bridge over Montlake Boulevard; the bridge is also connected via a ramp and stairway to street level adjacent to the station. The surface plaza around the station includes 130 bicycle racks under the bridge's ramp, as well as pay parking in nearby University of Washington lots. The station's elevators lead directly from the platform to the surface entrance and pedestrian overpass levels. The non-public areas of the station include a track crossover, maintenance spaces, and a smoke ventilation system assisted by two surface vents to the north and south of the complex.
University of Washington station was designed by LMN Architects, a Seattle-based firm that also worked on 13 other light rail stations on the future East Link and Lynnwood Link projects. LMN received several design awards for their work on the station, including a International Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum, an Award of Merit from the Seattle chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and an Honorable Mention in the Fast Co.Design Innovation By Design Awards. One major component of the station's architecture is the "chamber"-like mezzanine, which contains the station's sole piece of public art: Subterraneum by Leo Saul Berk. Subterraneum, funded by Sound Transit's system-wide public art program, consists of 6,000 backlit LED panels lining the walls of the chamber. Berk took inspiration from the geologic maps for the project and symbols representing the strata of layers near the station, while also adding some original creations. The installation was praised for its scale and evocative staging by Gary Faigin of The Seattle Times, and called an "underground planetarium" by the Huffington Post. The station's pictogram consists of a graduation cap with the University of Washington logo.
During construction of the station from 2010 to 2014, a temporary piece of art known as the "Great Wall of Us" was installed on the fence that surrounded the work site. The 1,100-foot-long (340 m) wall featured 800 photographs of 1,500 people taken at university events and at Tukwila International Boulevard station, interspersed with viewing windows into the work site and explanatory text.
Services
University of Washington station is the northern terminus of Sound Transit's Central Link line, which runs south to Downtown Seattle, the Rainier Valley, and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport toward Angle Lake station. It is situated north of the Capitol Hill station and connected to downtown by the University Link Tunnel. Central Link trains serve University of Washington station 20 hours a day on weekdays and Saturdays, from 5:00 am to 1:00 am, and 18 hours on Sundays, from 6:00 am to 12:00 am. During regular weekday service, trains operate roughly every 6 to 10 minutes during rush hour and midday operation, respectively, with longer headways of 15 minutes in the early morning and 20 minutes at night. During weekends, Central Link trains arrive at University of Washington Station every 10 minutes during midday hours and every 15 minutes during mornings and evenings. The station is approximately 44 minutes from SeaTac/Airport station and 6 minutes from Westlake station in Downtown Seattle.
University of Washington station is also a major bus station, with six bus stops around the Montlake Triangle area, serving bus routes from Northeast Seattle and the Eastside. King County Metro operates 18 routes that stop at the station, traveling to the University District, Ballard, Roosevelt, Northgate, Green Lake, Lake City, Sand Point, Kenmore, Kirkland, Bellevue, and Issaquah. Five Sound Transit Express routes connect the station to Bellevue, Issaquah, Kirkland, and Tacoma. Six Community Transit commuter routes travel from the station to areas in Snohomish County, including Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Mukilteo, and Marysville.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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