South Bellevue station is an elevated light rail station located in Bellevue, Washington, United States. It is served by the 2 Line of Sound Transit's Link light rail system, which connects Seattle to the Eastside suburbs. The elevated station has a single platform, a park and ride garage with 1,500 stalls, and bus bays served by King County Metro and Sound Transit Express routes.
The original park and ride opened on January 30, 1981, with 337 stalls to serve express routes between Downtown Seattle and Bellevue. It had low use for several years, but eventually reached capacity and was expanded to 419 stalls by the late 1990s. South Bellevue was included as the site of a light rail station in various proposals prior to the approval of East Link (now the 2 Line) in 2008. The park and ride lot closed in May 2017 for construction of the light rail station and parking garage, which opened in November 2021. Light rail service began on April 27, 2024, with South Bellevue remaining the western terminus of the 2 Line until 2026.
Location
South Bellevue station is situated on the east side of Bellevue Way near its interchange with Interstate 90 south of Downtown Bellevue. The light rail tracks and Bellevue Way form the boundary between the residential neighborhood of Enatai to the west and the Mercer Slough Nature Park to the east. The Mercer Slough includes freshwater wetlands, an education center, walking trails, a boat launch, and a blueberry farm. The town of Beaux Arts Village is located a to the west; the Bellefield office park and historic Frederick W. Winters House are both north of the station site.
According to 2013 data from the Puget Sound Regional Council, the area within of the station has a population of 1,708 people and no recorded jobs. The area is split between single-family homes in Enatai to the west and the protected areas of the Mercer Slough Nature Park to the east. The Enatai neighborhood developed in the 1950s and 1960s using winding streets and landscaping to impede through traffic. The city government's 2016 plan for the station area does not include land use changes for the neighborhood and calls for improved pedestrian and bicycling facilities. A high-occupancy vehicle lane southbound on Bellevue Way connects the station to westbound Interstate 90. The plan also proposed a residential parking zone with issued permits to prevent park-and-ride commuters from using street parking in the neighborhood.
History
Park and ride
Metro Transit, the countywide bus operator for King County, began development of permanent park and ride lots in the 1970s and selected southern Bellevue as one of 18 potential markets. Two sites along Bellevue Way at Southeast 27th Place and Southeast 30th Street were proposed in 1977 by Metro and the Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT). The first site, a farm in the Mercer Slough on the east side of Bellevue Way, was selected for development of a 400-stall park and ride, which was downsized from 630 stalls after a request from the City of Bellevue. The site's selection was criticized by a local community club, who were concerned with additional bus traffic and the aesthetics of the lot amongst farms and wetlands.
The South Bellevue Park & Ride opened on January 30, 1981, with 337 stalls and cost $2.3 million to construct using mitigation funds from the construction of Interstate 90. The lot served existing express routes that connected Bellevue to Downtown Seattle as well as a new route that spanned the entire Interstate 405 corridor from Aurora Village in Shoreline to the Southcenter Mall in Tukwila. By the end of the year, a new turn lane and widened entrance were completed by Metro. South Bellevue was described by The Seattle Times as "one of Metro's most dismal failures in attracting park and ride customers" due to its limited routes. Route 226, a major Seattle–Bellevue express service, was rerouted to South Bellevue in 1982 to encourage more use. In 1983, an average of 39 stalls (11% of capacity) were used daily by commuters; the figure grew to 66 stalls (18%) the following year. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Metro used the park and ride as a terminus for free "shopper" buses serving the Bellevue Square shopping center and shuttles for major events in Downtown Bellevue and Seattle.
In 1994, King County Metro added 108 stalls to the park and ride, which was regularly filled on weekdays. An additional 50 stalls opened for use in May 1997 and was supplemented by a set of leased spaces at a nearby church parking lot. A parking garage for the South Bellevue lot was proposed during the same time to meet projected demand but faced opposition from Bellevue mayor Ron Smith. By 1999, the lot was used by a daily average of 574 vehicles—over the listed capacity—and drivers resorted to illegally parking along fire lanes or on grass. Metro also proposed repainting the parking lot to fit an additional 50 stalls, but the plan was rejected due to concerns about the width of modern vehicles.
The opening of new park and ride lots in Eastgate and Issaquah in 2004 and 2006, respectively, were expected to ease overcrowding issues at South Bellevue. The South Bellevue park and ride remained filled on weekdays, with 107 percent of its listed 519 stalls used on an average weekday in late 2016. Approximately 44 percent of its users drove or more to access the lot according to a 2013 survey of recorded license plates. As of 2017, South Bellevue Park and Ride was served by four Sound Transit Express routes and three King County Metro routes with connections to Downtown Seattle, the University District, Overlake, and Issaquah.
Light rail planning
The Forward Thrust plan for rapid transit, which was rejected by voters in 1968 and 1970, included a line from Seattle to Bellevue on the Interstate 90 corridor with a park and ride station serving Enatai. The second iteration of the plan spur line would have split off at Enatai to serve a station at Eastgate with a 1,200-stall parking garage. A light rail plan drafted by Metro and the Puget Sound Council of Governments in 1986 also included a South Bellevue station on its Seattle–Bellevue line, which continued onward to Bothell and Redmond. In 1990, Metro proposed a rapid transit station—either for a busway or light rail system—at the site of the South Bellevue park and ride as part of a long-range plan for Eastside transit.
In 1995, the Regional Transit Authority (now Sound Transit) presented a $6.7 billion ballot measure that included a light rail line connecting Seattle to Bellevue and Overlake with a station serving South Bellevue. The proposal was rejected by voters, but the smaller Sound Move package passed in November 1996 to fund construction of a scaled-back Link light rail system with provisions for future expansions. In 2005, Sound Transit adopted a long-range plan with a designated Seattle–Bellevue–Overlake corridor for high-capacity transit that would use the Interstate 90 floating bridge. A light rail extension was chosen the following year in lieu of a proposed bus rapid transit line, which would have been designed for conversion to rail at a later date. The light rail project, named the East Link Extension, was part of the 2007 Roads and Transit ballot measure that was rejected by voters. A transit-only version of the ballot measure, named Sound Transit 2, was passed the following year with a station in South Bellevue on the Seattle–Overlake line.
The routing of the project's South Bellevue segment, generally between the East Channel Bridge and Main Street in Downtown Bellevue, was debated for several years by city officials and Sound Transit. An at-grade station at South Bellevue was initially endorsed by the city council in February 2009 and adopted by the Sound Transit Board in May with plans to further evaluate its placement. An alternate alignment on the Woodinville Subdivision or near I-405 was proposed in early 2010 by new councilmembers elected in November 2009 with support from Bellevue Square developer Kemper Freeman; the councilmembers in favor of the new alignment held a 4–3 majority. The concept eliminated the South Bellevue station and did not initially provide a replacement; a later version adopted by the city council as their locally preferred alternative in March 2010 included a station at the South Bellevue Way interchange with I-90.
The Sound Transit Board voted to continue analysis of the Bellevue Way routing while the city government prepared their own study of South Bellevue station alternatives that was published in July 2010. The study found that a station at the South Bellevue interchange would cost $170 million to $210 million—more than the baseline cost of $130 million for Sound Transit's alternative—and cause significant impacts to nearby areas, including Mercer Slough. The city council remained split on the South Bellevue alignment until an additional study from the city found a $138 million cost increase. In July 2011, Sound Transit and the city government tentatively agreed to adopt the Bellevue Way and 112th Avenue alignment with additional noise and traffic mitigation for some neighborhoods. The full memorandum of understanding was approved by both parties in November 2011 and the final routing was adopted in April 2013 with several cost-reducing design modifications. A lawsuit filed by residents in South Bellevue over the visual impacts of light rail construction was rejected by a U.S. District Court judge in 2013, allowing for plans to continue.
Light rail design and construction
The first designs for South Bellevue station were released in late 2013; the city government also began planning for future development and construction mitigation around the station. The finalized design for the station, its public artwork, and a five-story parking garage were unveiled in November 2014. As part of the project, Sound Transit also acquired of Mercer Slough Nature Park from the city government in exchange for additional land near the garage. The agency also paid for the restoration of a produce barn and public restrooms in the park. The construction contract for the South Bellevue section, which comprised the station, of elevated trackway, and the parking garage, was awarded to a joint venture of Shimmick Construction and Parsons for $321 million in October 2016. The section also includes a crossing of the westbound lanes of Interstate 90 that uses a curved, balanced cantilever bridge built through form-traveler gantries.
Utility relocation near the station area began in June 2016 with the removal of overhead lines by Puget Sound Energy. The South Bellevue park and ride closed on May 30, 2017, for light rail construction at the site. Buses continued to serve Bellevue Way but were moved from the center island to on-street stops. To mitigate the loss of parking, Sound Transit leased 367 stalls from eight churches in Bellevue and Renton, added trips to other express routes, and directed users to other park-and-ride lots with spare capacity. An additional lot opened in January 2018 with 50 more stalls. An earlier plan to build a satellite lot on Mercer Island was rejected following protests from residents who opposed the loss of parkland for the project. A temporary lot was opened south of the station site in July to serve visitors to Mercer Slough Nature Park as part of Sound Transit's construction mitigation plan.