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Sound Transit published the draft environmental impact statement for the Everett Link Extension on Sept. 18, 2026, opening a 45-day public comment period that runs through Nov. 2 — the first document to lay out, alternative by alternative, exactly which Snohomish County streets, homes and businesses sit in the path of light rail headed for downtown Everett.
The route, station by station
The project would add roughly 16 miles of 1 Line track north from the existing Lynnwood City Center station. According to Sound Transit’s own project page, the line is built around seven stations: Lynnwood City Center, West Alderwood, Ash Way, Mariner, Southwest Everett Industrial Center, SR 526/Evergreen and Everett Station downtown — plus an eighth, SR 99/Airport Road, that is “provisional” and not yet funded for construction.
HeraldNet, which obtained the draft EIS ahead of its Sept. 17, 2026 publication, reported that Sound Transit is still choosing among competing alignments at several of those stops: near Alderwood Mall on 33rd Avenue West, southwest Everett close to the Boeing plant, and downtown Everett around McDougall Avenue and Broadway. A station near SR 526 would land in the Casino Road neighborhood — one of the more diverse and lower-income areas the report flags for likely displacement of homes and small businesses.
What it costs, and why the number keeps moving
The price tag has been on the move for a year. Sound Transit’s own May 2026 financial plan, approved by its board that month, put the Everett extension at $7.7 billion, up from an earlier $6.5 billion estimate cited in that same plan. By September, reporting on the newly released draft EIS pegged the full build closer to $11.6 billion to $12 billion — Sound Transit’s 2026 estimate for both phases combined, up from the roughly $9.5 billion figure the agency had floated as recently as May, according to reporting reviewed for this story.
That escalation is not unique to Everett. The May 2026 board vote that kept this project “on schedule” also disclosed a systemwide shortfall of $34.5 billion across Sound Transit’s ST3 expansion program, driven by inflation, tariffs, labor shortages, supply-chain disruption and rising right-of-way costs, according to HeraldNet’s coverage of that meeting. To close part of the gap, the board voted 16-2 to push the Kirkland-Issaquah line back six years to 2050, scale back the Ballard extension to an initial stop at Seattle Center instead of its full route — whose own estimate nearly doubled, from about $12 billion to $22.6 billion — and cancel Sounder N Line commuter rail service by 2033.
Everett Link survived that round of cuts. Board chair and Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers has called release of the draft EIS “an important milestone for Everett Link and for the future of Snohomish County.” Sound Transit’s own May 2026 system-plan language states the project “remains fully funded for planning, design, and construction” — a claim worth watching given how much the estimate has already moved since that plan was adopted.
Timeline: two openings, four to fifteen years out
Assuming the current schedule holds, light rail would reach Southwest Everett Industrial Center by 2037, with the line’s northern end at Everett Station following in 2041. The Operations and Maintenance Facility North, needed to store and service trains, is planned to open ahead of passenger service. A parking component tied to the project was pushed to 2046 in Sound Transit’s most recent planning documents. The agency forecasts more than 25,000 boardings a day once the line is complete, per KIRO 7’s reporting.
None of that is locked in. Sound Transit says it will use the draft EIS and the public comments gathered through Nov. 2 to recommend a preferred route and station locations by December 2026, with a Final EIS expected in late 2027 or early 2028 — meaning the alignments through Alderwood, Mariner and downtown Everett that residents are being asked to weigh in on now could still shift before a shovel goes in the ground.
Local reaction, and who’s carrying the weight
Everett Mayor Cassie Franklin, who sits on the Sound Transit board, has framed the project in terms of job access, telling reporters it would let residents “get people to their job centers in Seattle, Bellevue or Renton.” She has also acknowledged the cost to the neighborhoods in the way: the corridor runs through “established, diverse neighborhoods with residents and small businesses that are an important part of the fabric of our community,” she said, according to HeraldNet.
A Sound Transit spokesperson, Henry Bendon, pointed to the region’s traffic problem as the case for the project: “Traffic on I-5 is not getting any better. It’s only going to get worse,” he told KIRO 7. Lynnwood City Council member David Parshall said the draft EIS will help the board weigh station accessibility and transit connections; Parshall has previously pushed Sound Transit to move the Alderwood-area alignment away from church property in his city.
What’s missing so far from the public record: any on-the-record comment from the Casino Road neighborhood residents or Southwest Everett business owners whose properties the draft EIS identifies as being in the displacement zone. Sound Transit has scheduled three in-person meetings in October — Oct. 13 at Mariner High School, Oct. 15 at the Carl Gipson Center and Oct. 21 at the Lynnwood Neighborhood Center — plus an Oct. 6 virtual session, where that testimony would presumably surface first.
How to weigh in
Comments on the draft EIS are being accepted through Nov. 2, 2026 online at soundtransit.org/everettlink-deis, by phone at 425-243-6255, or by email at everettlinkcomments@soundtransit.org.
