3 Seattle Agencies Team Up for Trees for Rail

Sound Transit, the City of Shoreline, and King Conservation District announced Trees for Rail, a partnership to re-green the Lynnwood Link light rail corridor with native trees and shrubs.

The partnership seeks to use King Conservation District’s county-wide Urban Tree Canopy program for native vegetation and tree canopy to decrease the impact on corridor-adjacent homeowners. 

“This program builds on our existing commitment to plant thousands of trees along the Lynnwood Link alignment,” says Sound Transit CEO Peter Rogoff. “We think teaming up with the City of Shoreline and bringing the expertise of KCD to homeowners in these areas will be a big win for residents and the environment.”

Sound Transit will be planting 20,000 trees. The agency will keep the newly planted trees along the alignment for a minimum of 13 years. King Conservation District’s role will be to work directly with the over 200 Shoreline homeowners who were impacted. 

King Conservation District will start planting later this year and eligible homeowners will be contacted by the company throughout the coming months. 

Sound Transit leverages its resources and will serve to meet Shoreline’s landscaping requirements. Shoreline calls for landscape buffers between the light rail corridor and residential neighborhoods. 

There is not enough space on Sound Transit owned property in some locations to plant these buffers. The parties have planned to offer trees and shrubs to be planted at nearby homes or adjacent City rights-of-way in impacted neighborhoods.

Eligible residents in parts of the Ridgecrest, North City, and Ballinger neighborhoods can volunteer to receive native trees and shrubs. They will be installed by KCD experts for free.  Households can also receive training on how to care for their plants. 

“We are excited about approaching rail corridor mitigation in this manner,” stated Shoreline mayor Will Hall. “This new approach reduces the number of property acquisitions needed by Sound Transit while still ensuring there are adequate landscape buffers along the light rail corridor.”