Sea-Tac's North Terminal Project Shelved;
Light-Rail Extension to Airport Garage Planned

Sea-Tac Airport planners have abandoned the proposed $3 billion North Terminal project. Airport spokesman Bob Parker told Truth in Aviation , “You can quote me as saying that the north terminal is gone."

The North Terminal had been projected as the site of an Airport station on the Regional Transit Authority (“Sound Transit”) light-rail line from downtown Seattle. With the terminal out of the picture, planners for the Airport and Sound Transit figure that the light-rail station can be located on the fourth level of the existing parking structure. Passengers will be able walk directly into the main terminal.

This new configuration would allow light rail to run at surface level for most of the last mile to the Airport, which would result in “major cost savings” for Sound Transit, according to Michael Cheyne, the Airport's director of planning.

Target date for completing the main portion of the light-rail line is 2009. Preliminary work is just now underway in Seattle's Rainier Valley. The remaining mile to reach the Airport is penciled in for completion in 2011.

Transit planners estimate that the line would accommodate about passenger 3000 trips per day. (Sea-Tac averages 73,300 passengers per day.) Cost estimates for the extension were not released.

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