How Mercer Island learned to love light rail, or at least accept it

MERCER ISLAND – Mercer Island is getting light rail this Saturday, whether it wants it or not.

After years of warnings that the train would bring traffic and crime, and lawsuits that pitted islanders’ attempts to hold on to their car-focused lifestyle, and the exclusive front-door access they had to the freeway, against plans for a regional transportation network, temperatures have cooled. Now, as light rail prepares to cross Lake Washington, the hottest topic is simply getting to the station, considering there’s not much parking nearby, and the bus service can at best be described as meager.

I’ve talked to some people who are excited about it but are worried they won’t be able to use it,” said Mayor Dave Rosenbaum, pointing to the 447-spot park-and-ride garage that sits next to the station at the north end of the 6-mile-long island. “There’s nowhere else to park.”

Rosenbaum also criticized King County’s bus service on the island, which runs once an hour for most of the day until it stops just before 7 p.m. Light rail, on the other hand, will run past midnight.

Overall, it’s an altogether different tone from officials and residents of Mercer Island, who sounded alarms about the project even before voters in the broader region approved the Eastside 2 Line. The battle, as battles sometimes go when light rail is built in a neighborhood, was epic and it fed into every one of the too-obvious story lines about the rich wanting to remain an island unto themselves. The moneyed retreat, where the median sale price of a home in 2025 was $2.4 million and about three times what houses went for in Seattle, being fortified against the masses – who happen to have an ORCA card.

In 2006, as Sound Transit had yet to decide where tracks could go on the island, retired resident Maretta Holden told The Seattle Times, “It won’t help me in any way, shape or form. I don’t go anywhere it’s going.”

Years later, when solid plans were made, it became clear that island residents were going to lose a perk no others had: direct access to Interstate 90’s express lanes, regardless of the number of people in a car, a benefit stemming from the city’s lawsuit in the 1980s over plans to expand I-90 from five lanes to eight.

The city sued the Washington State Department of Transportation, again, saying the loss of lanes would cause traffic to back up into Town Center. In 2017, the city dropped its lawsuit after Sound Transit said it would put $10 million toward traffic safety and mitigation.

In 2020, once again, the city sued. The lawsuit said Sound Transit had violated the 2017 agreement in designing the area where buses would stop, creating traffic and safety problems for people crossing the street. An agreement was reached, and this time Mercer Island said it would pay Sound Transit $2.1 million.

Now, as the litigious air has cleared, eyes have turned to the actual logistics of reaching the station.

That’s partly of Mercer Island’s own making, said King County Councilmember Claudia Balducci, a former Bellevue mayor who has sat on the Sound Transit board since 2010, pointing to the size of the parking garage.

“It’s a real problem,” she said. “A little bit self-imposed. The city stopped a bigger parking garage from being built. The answer is better bus service.”

The current two-story garage replaced a lot with 257 spots that would often fill up with bus commuters before 7 a.m., and parked cars spilled into neighborhood streets. Sound Transit, which already had express routes 550 and 554 there, came to the island with plans for a much bigger garage.

The City Council didn’t want it, fearing it would draw more outsiders to park on their island. Instead, it approved a smaller, two-story garage partly sunken into the ground, something it hoped would protect the character of the surrounding neighborhood but added to the project’s cost per parking spot.

The new, $16.8 million garage was finished in 2008, and like the first one, was almost immediately at capacity, which continues to this day. A 1,500-space garage sits at South Bellevue Station, just one stop away from the island, that has yet to see every spot taken.

Crime and buses

To be sure, not everyone is at ease with the trains.

At a February City Council meeting, Sound Transit officials were on hand for questions, including CEO Dow Constantine, who talked about the “genuine triumph” of light rail coming to Mercer and across the lake. Some members echoed his cheer, like Councilmember Ted Weinberg, who said the island would “benefit from this for generations to come.”

Councilmember Lisa Anderl pressed them about crime on trains, particularly drug use. Sound Transit praised its own security team, and told her how passengers can text the team for spot problems. City Manager Jessi Bon said Mercer Island had “up-staffed” two permanent positions in the police department in anticipation of light rail.

Councilmember Julie Hsieh, while supportive of light rail, said the small park- and-ride and paltry bus service would make it tough not just to get to the March 28 grand opening, but to use light rail in general.

Currently, two King County Metro lines trawl the island, the 204 and 630, and both are DART, or Dial-A-Ride Transit service. These smaller buses often operate in suburban communities traveling fixed routes, but can deviate for people with reservations.

The 204 runs nearly the length of the island from around 6 a.m. to nearly 7 p.m., every half-hour during commute times, and every hour in the middle of the day. On weekends, the bus runs once an hour, from about 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The 630 is mainly a shuttle to Seattle’s First Hill hospitals, and only runs on weekdays – four trips to Seattle in the morning, and four returning to Mercer in the afternoon and evening.

Metro has no plans to expand service.

Rosenbaum, the mayor, said he hopes Metro increases service, to help answer the “last-mile question” – how to bridge that final segment between home and train.

“I’m looking forward to taking the light rail to Mariners games, but if I can’t get home it doesn’t help me very much,” he said.

Lime tested its bikes there in Summer 2018, but the program wasn’t continued. Rosenbaum said he thought free, electric, on-demand shuttle bus services, like BellHop in Bellevue and RedLink in Redmond, probably wouldn’t work on the island because the business district is close to the station.

“Nothing’s all that far from light rail, in terms of walking. I think it could be this opportunity to check out the farmers market, have lunch, go to the bookstore,” Rosenbaum said.

Balducci, though, looks back at the yearslong opposition from some on the island, and can’t help but wonder if underlying a lot of the justifiable concerns is the fact that some people “didn’t like the idea of light rail.”

Those anti-transit ideas, Balducci said, are “somewhat generational: We must have as much in the way of road expansion as possible, or transit only brings ‘undesirable elements.’ I haven’t heard that from anybody under 70.”

Things truly have changed, she said, even on Mercer Island.

“I really do sense a lot of enthusiasm and excitement for this service, and that includes on Mercer Island,” she said. “Once they get to ride, I think they’re going to find they really, really like it.