Frequent rail riders hail Lynnwood Link’s first regular day

LYNNWOOD — Coming home from San Diego, it took Kendra Singelais about an hour to get to Lynnwood City Center Station from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Singelais lives in Bothell along with her husband and son Leo, 12. The family uses public transportation constantly and Tuesday was no different.

Singelais, 52, commutes to Seattle three days a week for work. It takes about 1½ hours. She parks at the Kenmore Park and Ride, catches Sound Transit’s 522 bus to the Roosevelt light rail station and takes light rail to her job from there.

With light rail and Community Transit’s 120 bus route between Bothell and the new Lynnwood light rail station moving from 18 daily trips to 25, she expects about a 15-minute bus ride and a half-hour light rail trip downtown.

“I’m very excited to have this open,” Singelais said Tuesday.

Outside of an easy way to get back from the airport, the light rail opening is going to impact her every week. The new, $3 flat rate for any ride doesn’t hurt either.

Friday’s opening of stations in Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace and Shoreline served as a party. But now it will become the new normal. For day-in, day-out users, it’s a matter of convenience.

Leo said he feels safer on transit than in a car. His mom agreed.

“You can read a book, you can watch a Netflix show,” Singelais said. “If you have to commute, why spend it sitting in traffic in a stressful situation, when you can spend it doing something that you enjoy and making the most of a less than ideal situation of needing to commute in the first place?”

Hundreds of people lined up at the Lynnwood City Center Station to take one of the first trains Friday. The busy trend continued Tuesday morning. Nearly every covered spot in the Lynnwood Transit Center garage was taken.

Empty parking spots were only available on the top level of the garage on Tuesday at noon.

Still, Daniel Riggers, 50, said he was a little surprised to not see every stall filled. Riggers said he was taking a trip on the Lynnwood extension to check out all the new stations. He lives in Seattle, but sees the train and a short bus ride as an easy way to get to Alderwood mall.

Northgate has gone downhill, Riggers said, so he’s looking forward to better access to Alderwood. His wife doesn’t drive, he added, making it even more important for her.

“Let’s say she needs to do some shopping and I’m not available, she has a way to get here,” Riggers said. “So were exploring that (today).”

Riggers made sure to get a selfie with both the hummingbird sculpture at the station and an arriving Link train in the background.

The new ride store at the Lynnwood station will serve as a lost and found staffed with Community Transit employees to answer commuter questions.

Sound Transit likely won’t have exact rider statistics for several weeks.

Community Transit, meanwhile, is expecting uptake on its Orange Line to increase following the entrance of light rail. The Orange Line connects McCollum Park and Ride on the outskirts of Everett to Edmonds College, hitting much of Lynnwood in between.

About 130,000 Snohomish County residents commute daily to jobs in King County, U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell said at Friday’s ribbon-cutting for the light rail extension. Sound Transit expects 47,000 to 55,000 daily riders by 2026.

“Today we inaugurate four new light rail stations in north King and south Snohomish County, lifting tens of thousands of daily riders up out of the maddening daily traffic jams on Interstate 5 and into frequent, fast, reliable, altogether better commuting,” Sound Transit Board Chair Dow Constantine said Friday.

It remains to be seen how much traffic the light rail line will peel off. The Lynnwood station has about 1,700 parking spots. Mountlake Terrace has just over 660 and each of the Shoreline stations have 500 parking spots each.

The Orange Line and other new bus offerings will shuttle people to the light rail station, but it could still take some convincing. Though Interim Sound Transit CEO Goran Sparrman said he doesn’t think it’ll take much.

“When they see (the Link) running and they recognize, ‘Maybe I should try this because I’m tired of being stuck in traffic,’” Sparrman told The Daily Herald on Friday.

It’s an economic move for many as well.

“You consider gas to get down there, what you have to pay for parking, this is a no-brainer,” Singelais said, “and hopefully people start to take advantage of that.”

Jordan Hansen: 425-339-3046; jordan.hansen@heraldnet.com; X: @jordyhansen.