Mercer Island Light Rail Opening - Part 3
COMMUNITYFEATUREDOPINION
Local author Jenny Harrington Lill is getting ready for the "at last" or "I'll believe it when I see it" or "we can still stop it if we try hard enough" (depending on who you ask) opening of Mercer Island's light rail station. In Part Three of her three part series (which recently has been greenlit for a second season), she explores fears of what trains may bring and asks what's real vs. perceived?
Image source: By SounderBruce
Part Three:
Safety In Numbers
Driving on an overpass in Salem, Oregon, last weekend, I saw a person wearing a balaclava and sunglasses standing near the guardrail. He pulled what looked to be a can of white spray paint from his back pocket. I braked, turned on my hazards, and called 911. “See something, say something” is ingrained in me. And lately, fed up with graffiti and vandalism, despite the risky location, I felt compelled to act.
“What’s your location?” the dispatch operator asked.
I didn’t know. The question unsettled me almost as much as the man.
“We have you on Mission Street,” she said.
“How?”
“We have technology.”
Later, I Googled it and learned that police departments use cellphone towers and GPS to locate a caller’s location in real time, but in the moment, I felt surveilled, as if I were a criminal.
My daughter, in the passenger seat, leaned over and said, “Mom, that’s a white Owala water bottle, not a can of paint.”
The container matched the water bottle she had in her backpack's side compartment, all but in color. I felt like an idiot. That moment — misreading a harmless object as a threat — lingers. As Mercer Island prepares for light rail, I wonder: how much of what we fear is real, and how much are we projecting?
Sandwiched between Seattle and the Eastside on a footprint-shaped island, the concern of imbalance is palpable. The experience of nearby Bellevue shows the arrival of light rail doesn’t have to be negative. I thought that crime in Bellevue in the last year would go up, but to my surprise, it has actually gone down. Still, to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume positive intent is hard for me these days — near the new station at Judkins Park is where I stopped trusting people.
Late one night in 2020, before driving through the Mount Baker tunnel, a person standing on the shoulder pushed a shopping cart onto I-90. The cart collided with my car. The orange shopping cart then flew over the hood and hit three other vehicles in rapid succession. I was unharmed, but my minivan was totaled. That year, over 170 incidents of debris thrown on I-90 near Rainier Avenue were reported, including a rock through a driver’s windshield on Sept 5, 2020. To this day, my sense of safety is altered; I don’t feel safe driving through the tunnel. The Washington State Patrol declared the area a public safety issue in 2021, and a homeless encampment was cleared. However, graffiti has steadily increased since, evidence that people still hang out in that area. Judkins Park is the other new light rail station opening on Saturday—the last stop in Seattle before Mercer Island.
Image source: Sound Transit
Getting answers to the question of how light rail will affect is tough; we haven’t had anything like this since, well, the I-90 floating bridge was built. The light rail is coming whether we want it or not, and most people I’ve talked to, like me, are ambivalent.
I am keen to rideshare to doctor’s appointments at Swedish First Hill and dine in downtown Redmond. Still, I don’t want, as my overactive mind imagines, degenerate fare dodgers to steal my stuff, ransack neighbors’ homes, or steal alcohol from the local businesses who work tirelessly to stay afloat. I don't want vandals to paint “Gooey” and “Dotcom” all over public walls and street signs. My mixed feelings make me wonder if something is unpaved in me; maybe I am a degenerate who doesn't know how to share. But the evidence is written on roadways, and my body keeps score. Are we really ready to open a portal for all of Seattle, Mercer Island, and the Eastside?
Michelle DeGrand, Chief Communications Officer for the City Manager’s Office in Bellevue, reminded me, “Although the light rail connection is a new mode of transportation between Seattle and the Eastside, transit options have existed prior to now that offer the same ability to move between communities.” DeGrand, like me, is focused on how light rail will improve people's lives. She said, “There are many people whose commutes both east and west from Mercer Island will be made easier and more sustainable by this new mode choice, making this expansion of transit options a source of newfound flexibility across our communities.” I could see we are aligned. As if she already knew I was planning to take the train to SeaTac next week, she added, “And it’s not just members of the workforce who benefit; getting to the airport, to a restaurant in Bellevue for a night out, or to a sporting event in Seattle is just a train ride away.
The only thing new is the number of riders. What are the projections of day trippers who will be coming to Mercer Island? According to Rachelle Cunningham, Public Information Officer with Sound Transit, “Sound Transit expects 50,000 daily boardings on the 2 Line between Lynnwood and Downtown Redmond stations. We don’t have projections for individual stations.”
Ridership projections are estimates based on population density. By 2030, Sound Transit fact sheets indicate Judkin’s Park daily projections of 3,000 riders; Bellevue Downtown station expects 7,000 daily boardings. When the Eastside extension of Downtown Redmond opened in May 2025, Sound Transit saw record-breaking ridership. The 2 Line ridership increased 94%. Downtown Redmond is the busiest Eastside station, recording roughly 47,000 weekly boardings, or about 6,700 per day shortly after opening. The number of day trippers coming to Mercer Island will vary, depending on the day, season, and reason. Since Mercer Island is less dense, logic tells me we likely won’t see as many boardings as at other stations, but we will see more than we do today.
With increased ridership of unknown size, I asked David Sandler, Communications Manager for Mercer Island, about lessons taken from nearby light rail stations. He said, “We expect there will be more calls, and calls of a different nature. MIPD has been planning for the station opening for a long time, and our three-officer unit will focus on proactive policing and maintaining an active presence in the area around the station and in Town Center.”
A three-officer unit? Tell me more! Following Bellevue’s lead, MIPD now has a dedicated unit to proactively police. While other regional transit systems faced safety challenges, Bellevue focused on proactive policing to keep its stations secure. According to Michelle DeGrand, Chief Communications Officer for the City Manager’s Office in Bellevue, “The Bellevue Police Department launched the Bellevue Light Rail Unit (BLU) in April 2024 during the official opening of the 2 Line along the Eastside.” This unit comprises six officers and a sergeant and was approved for funding by the Bellevue City Council in the fall of 2022. She added, “There have not been major issues on the 2 Line in terms of the work the BLU unit has been doing since the 2 Line launched in 2024.”
Like Bellevue, on Mercer Island, safety is a top priority. Sandler stated, “MIPD’s highest priority is to keep the community safe. To that end, MIPD is focusing on ensuring a rapid response to all emergency calls, working collaboratively with our law enforcement partners, and deploying officers in an effective manner.” The three-officer unit’s specific objective is to patrol the station area and Town Center and respond to calls.
Voicing the imagination of my overactive mind, I asked, “What should I do if I see a suspicious person getting on the light rail with an e-bike or a leaf blower or tools that look like they came out of someone’s garage?”
Sandler said, “Whenever you see activity that a reasonable person would find suspicious, call 911. It is important not to make assumptions and draw conclusions that may not be immediately supported by available information.” He is confident that the new unit, MIPD, will deter individuals from committing petty offenses. As for fare evasion, it is the sole responsibility of Sound Transit.
The opening of the station will undoubtedly usher in a period of change. For anyone still feeling uncertainty, Sandler assures, “The City Council and MIPD have been working to prepare for this over many years, and we are confident that we will be able to maintain a safe and welcoming community by responding to and addressing issues as they arise.”
MIPD will be collecting and analyzing data to determine if there are appreciable changes in call loads and self-directed activities by officers. Sandler said “From this data, we will be able to gauge or reassess our response strategies by comparing it to previous years. We strive to keep any increase in crime to an absolute minimum.”
It is difficult to accurately anticipate future needs. I thought this story was about safety, but it is really about fear of the future and unknown. That doesn’t mean the risks around light rail aren’t real—but it does make me wonder how often fear fills in the blanks before facts arrive.
As the trains begin to run on March 28th, Mercer Island won’t just be testing a transit system; we’ll be testing our ability to tell the difference between fear and projection. I thought I saw a threat on that overpass. I was wrong. Maybe the trains will pass through, and most riders won’t stop at all. And all this worry may turn out to resemble something closer to a white water bottle than a can of spray paint.
About the Author:
Jenny Harrington Lill is a writer, researcher, and Mercer Island resident. She is an MFA candidate in nonfiction and literature at Bennington Writing Seminars and a 2025 Jack Straw Writers Fellow. Jenny is currently working on her debut collection of essays.
Learn more about Jenny and her writing here.