Seattle’s Northgate Light Rail Station

[By Tina Koyama in Seattle] Several new light rail stations are going up in and near Seattle, and two are each about a mile from my house – Roosevelt to the south and Northgate to the north. When we first started seeing construction activity in 2013, their completion seemed so far off in future – my husband and I used to joke that we might not be around to use them! – yet both are scheduled to open in a couple of months. The first time I sketched the Roosevelt site was in 2013, and I sketched it periodically after that, but eventually fencing around the site made it difficult to see what was going on. I think the last time I sketched any action there was in 2017.

Northgate was even harder to get close to early on, but I always had it in the back of my mind to sketch its progress. I thought about it several times last year when the action was getting big, but the pandemic made me feel uncomfortable being onsite. Tuesday morning I realized that if I didn’t hurry and sketch it soon, it would no longer be a “progress” sketch – it would be done! So sketch it I did.

Behind the chain link fence, the station looked complete, and a lone worker was maintaining the small trees and other plantings. At one point, an empty train rolled slowly toward the station.

I have yet to ride public transportation since the pandemic began, but maybe the opening of these brand new stations will give me the shove I need to hop aboard. Someday when we travel again, either station will certainly make it easier for us to get to the airport.