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Photo of Link Light Rail cars used for project update, Operations and Maintenance Facility South
Operations and Maintenance Facility South

Comment by April 19 on South King County’s new light rail maintenance facility

Publish Date

Sound Transit is expanding our light rail train fleet in the coming years to support future Link extensions to Tacoma and throughout the region. To receive these new electric trains, we first need to build a new facility in South King County: the Operations and Maintenance Facility South. 

After almost two years of preparation, we’ve published the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, which documents the project’s potential impacts and benefits to the natural and built environment for each of the three site alternatives. A Draft EIS also proposes potential mitigation measures to address adverse impacts. 

Now we need to hear from you! Visit our online open house to review the findings and share your comments.    

Visit our online open house to learn more
    

Other ways to comment

What do you think about the possible impacts, benefits and mitigation our analysis identified? Which of our three potential sites should the Sound Transit Board advance as the “preferred alternative?” Share your thoughts by April 19 through our online open house at omfsouth.participate.online, or:

  • Attend one of our two online public meetings and hearings to make a verbal comment:
    • Wednesday, March 24, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 
    • Tuesday, March 30,11 a.m. - 1 p.m. 

For more information about the meetings, please visit the online open house

  • Share your comment via Email or voicemail: OMFSouthDEIS@soundtransit.org or 206-257-2135
  • Share your comment via Mail: OMF South Project, c/o Hussein Rehmat, Sound Transit, 401 S. Jackson St. Seattle, WA 98104

 

What’s the OMF South?

The OMF South is where Link trains will go for cleaning, storage and care, and it will be open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Once constructed, the project will create more than 470 high-skilled, living-wage jobs in South King County. At our existing OMF, the average employee wage is more than $40 per hour, or $80,000 per year.

In case you missed it, check out our recent video that goes behind the scenes at an OMF. 

Watch the video

 

What comes next?

Your comments on the Draft EIS will inform our next steps. We’ll compile a summary of all the comments we receive during the extended 45-day Draft EIS comment period. The Sound Transit Board will consider all feedback from the public, agencies and tribes as they work to identify a preferred alternative. 

After the Draft EIS public review and comment period, the Sound Transit Board will identify a site as a "preferred alternative" for the Final EIS, in late 2021. A preferred alternative is a statement of where the agency is leaning based on information available at the time. It's not a final decision.

Then we’ll prepare a Final EIS, which will include responses to all substantive comments received on the Draft EIS. We expect to publish the Final EIS in 2022, and then the Board will select the project to be built.

As a note, Sound Transit Board decisions on realignment, influenced by the COVID-19 recession and increased cost estimates, may change project schedules. For more information, please visit soundtransit.org/realignment.

Questions? Contact us!

 

Questions about your property?

We won’t make final decisions on affected properties and acquisitions until 2022, at the earliest, after the Final EIS and Sound Transit Board decision—on the project to be built. Until then our project outreach team is available to help with questions every step of the way. To set up a property owner briefing with members of the project team, you can:

 

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