Landslide on Federal Way light rail extension project might push opening date into 2025
A July landslide on the Federal Way Link Extension might force the entire 7.8 mile long, $2.54 billion light rail project to push its opening date of late 2024 to sometime in 2025, Sound Transit announced Thursday evening.
Sound Transit said an approximately 200-foot-long portion of an embankment supporting Interstate 5 in Kent near South 259th Place slid nine feet on July 19.
The “unexpected ground instability issue” will require a redesign of that segment.
At the time, the slide led to a three-day precautionary lane closure on southbound I-5.
The slope has been stabilized for the time being, Sound Transit said. However, a permanent solution needs to be designed that will mitigate a “liquifiable layer of soil that has been identified fairly deep below the light rail alignment.”
The issue was presented Thursday to Sound Transit’s board system expansion committee. The agency said the new opening date could be several months into 2025.
The extension adds three stations to the existing system and will run between Angle Lake and Federal Way.
This story was originally published August 19, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
