Sound Transit Elevator & Escalator Service Going Up

Existing SeaTac Link station elevatorExisting and proposed second SeaTac Link station elevator from Contract for Second SeaTac Elevator presentation

Sound Transit has approved a new elevator for SeaTac east of Tukwila International Boulevard in Motion No. M2024-43. In a presentation to the Board's Rider and Operations Committee (pdf) on July 18, Sound Transit staff outlined how the existing elevator experienced frequent outages and requires bus bridges to accommodate passengers to and from Angle Lake station.

Map of existing and new SeaTac elevator just east of Pacific Highway from Contract for Second SeaTac Elevator presentation

The new elevator is located east of Pacific Highway and north of S 176th Street, just east of the existing elevator and next to the SeaTac Link Station passenger pick up lot. JTM Construction, Inc., would build the elevator for $5,939,318, which includes constructing a specialized curtain wall structure around the elevator, expanding the upper landing platform at the east side of the bridge over International Boulevard (aka Pacific Hwy, or SR-99), and tying the elevator systems into Sound Transit's power and security systems at the SeaTac/Airport Station. The contract guarantees the existing elevator will remain open while the second elevator is under construction, and ST staff believes beginning this work now will ensure the second elevator is ready in time for the 2026 World Cup.

The additional elevator should both increase ADA accessibility to SeaTac Link Station plus the airport, as well as slightly encourage use of the passenger pick up lot with the decreased wait time.

Vertical Transportation maintenance

Additionally, Sound Transit recently signed a new annual contract with Schindler Elevator Corporation and Mid-American Elevator (pdf) to maintain elevators and escalators across the rest of their facilities. Currently there are 223 vertical transportation, or VT, assets in the system that require maintenance across their services, including: 101 escalators and 64 elevators at Link stations; 38 elevators at ST Express and Sounder stations and garages, and 20 non-revenue elevators. In the next five years, staff expect the number of VT assets to grow to 310 through ongoing expansions. As ST3 construction is finishing up in 2041, Sound Transit expects to have a total of 575 escalators and elevators to maintain across all their services.

Chart showing Sound Transit's increasing number of escalators and elevators from a total of 250 in 2024 to 575 by 2041

In an effort to simplify administrative and other overhead costs, the new contract with Schindler merges three previously-separate VT maintenance contracts into one. The contract has an estimated annual cost of $73,610,000 plus taxes totaling $81,928,384 per year, extendable for up to 5 years.

Elevator and Escalator Modernization

In order to keep the older escalators and elevators from constantly breaking in the meantime, Sound Transit and its subcontractors have been working toward modernizing" equipment throughout their facilities, including 35-year-old escalators and elevators in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel.

In a presentation to the Board's Rider and Operations Committee on June 26, Sound Transit staff detailed plans to upgrade and modernize escalators and elevators (pdf) throughout the system, indicating progress on plans reported last year by The Urbanist.

10 year modernization timeline for elevators and escalators from Vertical Transportation
Program Update presentation

The International District Station Modernization (pdf) has already started, with replacement or refurbishment of four escalators and four elevators one at a time. That work is expected to finish just before the World Cup in 2026, during which Sound Transit will pause efforts in expectation of large crowds.

After the soccer tournament, Sound Transit will begin work on other stations in the Downtown Tunnel. With 18 elevators and 32 escalators across the Pioneer Square, University Street, and Westlake stations, modernization of the the 35-year-old elevators and escalators is expected to be complete in 2033. Meanwhile, modernization of VT assets outside of Downtown would start in 2029 with no corresponding finish date. The estimated cost of the Downtown Tunnel VT asset modernization is $119 million dollars.

Chart showing decreased outage of services hours and decreased average return to service time from January 2021 to April 2024 from Vertical Transportation Program Update presentation

In late 2020, Sound Transit's Board approved $8.7M to conduct repairs and safety upgrades on Downtown Tunnel VT assets even before the agency officially took ownership of the transit tunnel in late 2022. These efforts have significantly decreased both the average amount of time VT assets are out of service as well as reducing the time it takes to fix them after breaking. In their presentation on June 6, ST staff noted that they had decreased monthly out of service hours from 17,100 to 2,500, and decreased average return-to-service time per outage from 200 hours to 7 hours.