Huge news! This morning, Sound Transit announced that the new light rail connection bridging Seattle’s 1 Line and Bellevue’s 2 Line will open on March 28, 2026. And, yes, you’re correct, that makes the watery connection a fiery Aries. 

How will this bode for one unified Seattle metropolitan area? Will the 1 Line and the Cross Lake Connection get along? Well …Seattle’s 1 Line opened on July 18, 2009, making it a Cancer. I texted my 27-year-old sister-in-law, who knows about these things and has also seen ghosts before, what to make of this astrological pairing. 

“OOH, now that’s interesting,” she texted back. “Plain logic would say idiot idea.” 

Uh oh. 

This connection has already been mired in complication. This bridge between worlds—Seattle, a Sagitarrius (December 2, 1869), and Bellevue, an Aries (March 31, 1953) (I told my sister-in-law this and she said “that’s tea I believe it”)—was supposed to open back in 2020. Planning disputes with Bellevue (classically argumentative Aries) and 5,400 concrete track ties that needed rebuilding delayed the project by six years. 

My sister-in-law said that because both Aries and Cancer are cardinal signs, these are the signs that start each new season and are often seen as the “alphas” of the Zodiac, they could “get along way better than makes sense.” I sent her their complete birth charts. “The argument could be made for balancing each others’ energies, but to be honest they probably shouldn’t date,” she responded. 

Then, she followed up with, “Genders?”

“They’re technically non-binary,” I said. “These are the birth charts for Seattle’s light rail lines.” 

“Well, they’re not traditionally compatible, I’ll tell you that much,” she said. 

Analyzing the chart, the trouble seems to be that the Cross Lake Connection (or, as my SIL calls it, Miss Aries) has a moon in Leo which means a lot of “unadulterated confidence/main character syndrome.” That tracks. The Cross Lake Connection is the first ever instance of a light rail train crossing a floating bridge with its own power. But, this main character energy might not get in the way too much because, with Mercury and Mars in Pisces, the Cross Lake Connection “doesn’t really know how to fight” (as a Pisces with too much Pisces in my own chart, I can attest to this). 

The 1 Line on the other hand—Cancer Mommy, according to my SIL— “loves and hates herself ad nauseum with all that prominent Gemini. And though she will try to scream (Mercury in Leo) it comes off more like little volcano spit ups than anything because where’s the rest of the fire in her chart?? That’s right. NOWHERE.”

This could explain why our sweet little 1 Line is always starting and stopping.

So, there may be troubled waters ahead for the Cross Lake Connection. Cafe Astrology affirms this. 

“The two persons are drawn towards each other, but the union can be unstable at times, largely because there will inevitably be division, probably through misunderstanding on romantic levels, which may frustrate the partner." The division could also be Lake Washington. 

Of course, the 1 Line and the Cross Lake Connection are not the only two lines in this tango. Bellevue’s 2 Line is part of this as well. That line is a Taurus. “Ughhhh unfortunately queen shit,” my SIL says about that. How does that line fit into this mix? 

“She would be the undisputed leader if she gave a fuck, but she just doesn’t so the Cross Lake Connection will operate as the de facto leader,” my sister-in-law says. 

According to the chart at large, the Bellevue 2 Line “doesn’t really prize communication (there’s no air energy).” 

The most surprising thing about this dive into the light rail line stars is that, according to Cafe Astrology, Line 1 (Seattle) and Line 2 (Bellevue) are two loving, tolerant partners. Not only that but they have “enormous physical passion. The sexual attraction is intense and insistent. They want to be around each other as much as possible. Their sexual relationship evolves with time, instead of dissolves."

The Cross Lake Connection should be bringing them together, but it could be keeping those two apart with its Aries-ness.