Project updates
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Visitors attend the open house at Highline College on March 20.

Thank you for your feedback!

Publish Date
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Thanks to everyone who provided comments for the Operations and Maintenance Facility (OMF) South project during the scoping period! Your feedback during this official comment period was compiled into a scoping summary report, now available online.

What comes next?

The scoping summary will help the Sound Transit Board define which sites are studied in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). A Draft EIS will be published in 2020, and a final EIS will be published in 2021. Final design, construction, and testing of the facility will take place from 2021 to 2026. Operations of the new maintenance facility will begin in 2026.

What is an Operations and Maintenance Facility (OMF)?

An OMF is where trains go for cleaning, storage and maintenance and operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Light rail can't operate effectively in the South Sound without an additional OMF in South King County. Finding sites is challenging, as Sound Transit requires at least 30 relatively flat acres (for reference, 1 football field is 1.3 acres) that are near an operating light rail line, with specific site conditions often pushing the acreage requirement higher.

One OMF currently exists in Seattle, and another facility is under construction in Bellevue. To accommodate additional vehicles for the future 116-mile voter-approved regional light rail system, the system requires an additional OMF in the South Sound and one in Sound Transit's North Corridor.