While Seattle light rail is successful on many grounds, the expected ridership has always been lagging for the original 17 stations of phase one "Sound Move" from University District to Angle Lake, including service to/from University of Washington, Capitol Hill, Seattle Downtown, SODO Stadium District, SE Seattle, Tukwila, SEA Airport, and City of SeaTac.
Collectively, these 17 stations have not ever reached a monthly average of 105,000 boardings per day, a number that was supposed to be the average ridership per day year-round after Sound Move was to be completed, which by the way took until the 2020s. From the available records I have examined, the best month ever for the original 17 stations was July 2025, The average total number of daily boardings for the original 17 stations reached a high of only 97,446 in that recent annual best month, July of 2025, despite billions spent on the network for more tracks and tunnels with the system reaching additional station destinations over the 16 years since 2010.
All the other 11 months of 2025 the ridership was lower, pulling down the all-year average for the original stations below that 105,000 goal. While February 2026 numbers including the Superbowl celebration day have not been published, it's unlikely the monthly daily average got past the 105,000 benchmark, even acknowledging the ability of Link Light Rail to serve big game and concert days is important.
More train riders and fewer car drivers is important every day of the year.
So, 30 years after the first tax vote with two more Sound Transit tax approval votes in the bag and 20 billion dollars collected in local taxes, Sound Transit hasn’t yet hit the day-in and day-out original ridership boardings promised for the core part of the network. I find that surprising and worthy of discussion given the common attitude, "build the damn train and the citizens will climb aboard." Speaking to you, Transit Choices Coalition, agency bought and paid booster for Sound Transit spending without limits
With the Crosslake connection, I'm waiting with interest to see if the original 17 stations get a lot busier now that the Eastside is directly reachable from those 17 boading points on the Seattle side of Lake Washington. That's the hope, right?
= new reply since forum marked as read