East Link construction makes progress

As we near the end of 2017 and with six months of construction under our belt, we wanted to take the opportunity to provide an up-close-and-personal look at construction activities and look ahead to upcoming work.

A strong foundation

During the last few months, crews have been busy excavating, installing utilities, building supports for the future Mercer Island station and pouring sound walls. To do so, crews drilled concrete shafts to support the platform, sound walls and the concrete slab that will eventually carry light rail tracks. Take a look at recent construction activities:

Crews excavate the Mercer Island station area to prepare for sound wall installation. Drilled concrete shafts can be seen to the left and right, and will support the future platform sound walls.

Carpenters build wood forms that will be filled with concrete. Once cured, these will form the foundation for the platform’s sound walls.

Crews pour concrete into the wood forms to create the sound walls at the Mercer Island station.

A closer look at the wood forms awaiting concrete.

Poured concrete sound walls are left to cure before the wood forms are removed.