Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Hi, Redmond. I'm here in Downtown Seattle, and I'm waiting for the CEO of Sound Transit, Dow Constantine.

Your honor.

Hey, Dow. Glad to see

you. Thanks

for coming, to join me on trip to Redmond.

I'm looking forward to it, and it is a beautiful day to go to Redmond.

It is a beautiful day to go to Redmond. Every day is a beautiful day to go

to Redmond. That's what you keep telling me. I know. Here comes our train.

I know. Here it comes. Look at there it is. Right on time.

Of course. There we go.

So I picked a perfect day for this ride. The Mariners are playing right outside here as we go past the T Mobile Park.

What's really interesting is so many more people are using transit to get to events like Mariners games. And we've seen ridership keep increasing as people discover the ability to use this system in their daily lives. We've had a 15% increase in daily ridership since we opened across the lake, and I don't think it's gonna stop there either. When you see a national television broadcast from Seattle, you always see certain things. You see Yeah.

Them throwing a fish around the Pike Place Market, and you see the Space Needle, and you see a ferry. This is gonna be one of those things. The train from Seattle to Bellevue to Redmond heading across this lake, the only place in the world where we have a train going across a floating bridge. And one of the things that's really interesting about it is this most difficult stretch where they had to engineer it to move side to side, up and down, back and forth, is the smoothest part of the entire system. It's quiet, it's smooth, it's a great ride and it gives folks whether locals or tourists a chance to really enjoy this place that we call home.

The first part of our mission statement is at Sound Transit is enthusiastically remaking the map of Central Puget Sound. And, you know, that is what this is really about. When you build these rails and you put in a station, you create an opportunity, a catalyst Right. For the development of great nodes of housing and commerce and parks, places where families can live, and be able to travel much less expensively.

So, there's this whole World Cup thing that's coming.

There's a World Cup that little thing.

That little thing.

Yeah. It starts June.

Yeah.

It is going to be a very big deal for our region. This is our first big test to really welcoming a large audience unfamiliar with our system and probably unfamiliar with our region and we're going to use this to show them what this place has to offer. Here we go.

Alright. So let's stop. Well, let's get out. Let's how about we go walk around Redmond a little

bit and

get a cup of coffee or something?

Sounds great.

Maybe some ice cream. I don't know. It can happen.