The Sound Transit Board voted Thursday to change the name of the University Street Link light rail station to Union Street/Symphony Station.
The renaming will take place in 2021 upon the opening of the Northgate Link extension, including the new U District Station, and will avoid rider confusion over multiple stations with university-based names, according to a Sound Transit news release.
The Seattle Symphony performs at Benaroya Hall, near the light rail stop, at 200 University St.
The station has operated under the University Street Station name since it opened in 1990 as part of the downtown transit tunnel which only served buses until Link light rail opened in 2009. In 2016, the light rail system expanded with the opening of the Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations.
The name change comes after a public engagement process in which Sound Transit received 14,000 survey responses. “Symphony” emerged the winner after all the votes were tallied. The Union Street/Symphony Station name will maintain the current “USS” acronym that is used for the station, avoiding the costs of technical updates to the tunnel’s operating and life safety systems.
Over the next five years the regional light rail system will dramatically expand. Following the 2021 opening to Northgate, trains will reach Mercer Island, Bellevue and the Redmond’s Overlake area in 2023. Only one year later, in 2024, extensions will open to Shoreline, Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood, Kent, Federal Way and Downtown Redmond.
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