Sound Transit renames University Street Station as Union Street/Symphony Station

Sound Transit’s governing board Thursday unanimously voted to rename University Street Station as Union Street/Symphony Station next year, even though all three exits are a block or two south of Union Street.

The change is meant to eliminate confusion among light-rail passengers visiting Seattle who sometimes hop out at the mid-downtown site thinking they’re near the University of Washington.

After vetting six names with the public last year, such as Symphony Station or Seneca Street Station, staff realized doing so would require changing the current USS acronym within software, ticket machines, manuals and firefighting equipment.

Costs for those tweaks could total anywhere from $700,000 to $5 million, according to a Sound Transit spreadsheet. About 12,000 riders a day board or exit there.

So a committee last week endorsed Union Street/Symphony to maintain the USS acronym. Cost for that change is estimated at about $1 million.

The name will change when new U District, Roosevelt and Northgate stations open, now scheduled for September 2021.