What To Watch For in 2016

This is going to be the biggest transit year in a while:

• University Link opens, adding two hugely important stations to the system, sometime in the first quarter.
• Metro massively revises service in Northeast Seattle in March to take advantage of Link and radically increase the number of frequent corridors.
• Metro tweaks Capitol Hill routes in March to respond (halfheartedly) to the new Capitol Hill Station.
• Sound Transit opens Angle Lake Station, with 1,050 parking spaces, in Late 2016.
• Community Transit adds 33,000 3,300 service hours in March as a result of last year's Prop 1, with a bigger one to come in September.
• Pierce Transit adds at least 30,000 service hours in March September.
• SDOT pays to split the RapidRide C and D lines, introducing new service to South Lake Union.
• The First Hill Streetcar opens, sometime this year, we think - but SDOT won't confirm anything.
• The Edmonds Community College (S. 200th St.) Swift station opens in January or February.
• Cellular service goes live in the Link tunnels.
• CT opens a new park and ride west of Paine Field sometime this year.
• ST Express and Sounder jump on the ORCA LIFT low-income fare bandwagon - joining Metro, Link Light Rail, Seattle Streetcar, King County Water Taxis, and Kitsap Transit - on March 1, one year to the day after the ORCA LIFT program went live.
• Tacoma Link fares begin in September.
• SDOT begins a ridership study to project the impact of integrating the monorail into the regional transit fare system, which would include honoring the PugetPass and a low-income fare.
• The Sound Transit Board will almost certainly send Sound Transit 3 to the ballot in November.
• A Seattle housing levy in November should expand the City's housing stock.