WA: Downtown Seattle light rail to close early for 3 nights. What to know.

Late-night light rail passengers in downtown Seattle must take shuttle buses for the next few days as Sound Transit works on scheduled maintenance in the transit tunnel.

The work is part of Sound Transit's plan to make night maintenance routine for a few days each month, closing portions of the light rail system before 1 a.m., when service usually ends, to try to avoid unplanned shutdowns in the future.

Beginning Tuesday just before 10 p.m., buses will replace 1 Line trains between Capitol Hill and Sodo stations to accommodate planned monthly maintenance. The work will be done before trains begin running in the morning but will continue again at night on Wednesday and Thursday.

During the work, the buses will stop at each affected light rail station, and 1 Line trains will run every 15 minutes between Lynnwood and Capitol Hill stations, and from Sodo to Angle Lake stations.

Henry Bendon, a Sound Transit spokesperson, said the idea is to keep the system in good repair without disrupting most of the 130,000 people who ride the train on weekdays, which he called a Taylor Swift Eras Tour level of ridership," referring to the ridership record struck in July 2023 when Swift fans attended her concert, but now occurs on a daily basis.

The goal, Bendon said, is to have fewer than 10 hours of unplanned disruption a month. Earlier this year, the system averaged 15 hours a month. In 2024, that figure was at 38 hours.

This week's work is the second of monthly scheduled maintenance windows. The first took place in October, when crews tightened overhead wire and replaced a thousand feet of rail, among other repairs.

But even with the overnight work, time is limited, Bendon said. At Beacon Hill Station, for instance, the four-hour nighttime window is reduced to just 47 minutes after crews get the trains put to bed at the Sodo yard and safety blocks are put in place.

Still, it's better than shutting the whole system down during the day.

"We're sensitive to that fact that even though it's late night and fewer people are riding, people are still riding, Bendon said.

The next scheduled night maintenance will occur Dec. 2-4 between Capitol Hill and Northgate stations.

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