Five years! For a blast from the past, check out our opening day coverage from back in 2009. A lot has changed since then, some of it the world affecting Link, and some of it Link affecting the world. How has the opening of Seattle’s first all-day rapid transit line effected your life?
Yesterday, Sound Transit released some numbers that are icing on Link’s birthday cake. May saw a twenty-three percent increase in average weekday ridership, year-on-year, over 2013. Yes, you read that correctly: twenty-three percent! (Okay, it’s actually 22.7%, but close enough.) Now if you look at my charts you’ll see that May 2013 was a relatively low growth month, but still that is pretty amazing!
May’s Central Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 33,650 / 27,910 / 17,412, growth of 22.7%, 17.1%, and 18.8% respectively over May 2013. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 9.7% with ridership increasing on both lines. Total Tacoma Link weekday ridership declined 6.2%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up 5.9%. Total Sound Transit average weekday boardings were up 10.1%. The complete May Ridership Summary is here.
My charts are below the fold. Happy Birthday Link!
Well I think a mea culpa is in order.
Apparently my suggestion a few reports (and months ago) the Seahawks victory parade would be a spike with a downfall was…………………..
WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Happy I’m wrong on this!
Are you talking about Link ridership, or about the Mariners making a run at the playoffs, and the Sounders being way out front in the Supporters’ Shield race?
If I had taken Link to the Chelsea match in 2009, that would have been a mistake. I think I waited in line over an hour at University St. Station after the match. Having to then stand on the train gave me a less-than-awesome memory of Link’s opening. I took the 174 back downtown instead of waiting another hour in line for the return trip.
This time, I do plan to ride the train to the Tottenham match, and don’t expect any delays, as long as some drunken idiot doesn’t wrap his brand-new jeep around a light-post in the middle of the tracks (as happened before the parade, delaying trains a half hour).
The Portland match last weekend (64,000+ in attendance, same expected this weekend) went off without a hitch, but I’m very curious to see what Link can do in the face of the I-90 closure.
Link Ridership in general Brent.
Seattle had surprisingly low figures when Link first opened, and the rail ridership habit seems to have developed slowly. It’s now cruising back up to the ‘much better than predicted’ which has been true of nearly all urban rail lines in the US.
Happy Birthday, Central Link!
With 166,000 more boardings in May, Link *was* ST’s ridership growth for the month. Link’s increase in total boardings has been beating out ST Express’s for eight months in a row.
Sometime soon after U-Link opens, Link will have higher ridership than the rest of Sound Transit, and all other transit agencies in the state, except King County Metro.
Thank the Creator they are ignoring the advice from non-bus-riding and only-pretending-to-be-pro-transit critics about emulating Pierce Transit or Community Transit.
These numbers are great, but what about some greater context? How are these numbers tracking to the long-term projections for Link? Have we already exceeded the 10 (or 15, or 20, or whatever it is) year projections in just half that time? Are we on target?
Look back at the March 2014 report writeup for how completely unheard of this type of growth is:
https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2014/05/23/march-14-st-ridership-report/
(Agreed that a bit of horn tooting should have made it into this writeup as well).
The ridership projections are here:
https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2013_SIP_Final_20130212.pdf
page 112.
Projections (weekday boardings):
2014 – 29,600
2015 – 31,100
2016 – 34,700
2017 – 55,800 (U-link factored in here IMO)
2018 – 82,300
The annualized average of just over 30k puts us within striking distance of 2015’s projection, and 2016’s projection will likely be blown out of the water when U-link opens.
I found this document: http://www.soundtransit.org/Documents/pdf/newsroom/SIP/2010SIP_final.pdf
Page 105 gives projections from 2009 of expected weekday boardings. They’re listed as follows:
– 2009: 15,900
– 2010: 26,600
– 2011: 33,800
– 2012: 36,400
– 2013: 37,500
– 2014: 38,600
– 2015: 39,700
It seems that we’re averaging 2-3 years behind the 2009 projections, unless I’m somehow misinterpreting the document.
You’re right. It looks like they revised their expectations down in 2013.
You can’t make ridership projections without guessing whether routes like the 101 or 150 are going to continue in the current form or be truncated. They probably guessed that Metro would truncate the routes and turned out to have guessed wrong.
Yes, having 80k less jobs downtown than was estimated (Great Recession) had a huge impact on Link ridership when it first opened. We just recently reached the number of jobs downtown as we had pre-Recession so to only be 2 or 3 years lagging to me says Link is over-performing.
It’s a little out of date (Link is doing better than I figured) but here is a breakdown:
https://seattletransitblog.wpcomstaging.com/2013/10/30/link-ridership-v-the-short-term-projections/
Based on the direction of the graph lines, it looks like Link may finally be on track to beat the opening July of 2009 spike.
Given the anemic zoning upgrades at many of the stations….what the heck is going on here? Where are all these new riders coming from? (Not complaining, just confused…)
I’m guessing riders in SE Seattle realize how much quicker, more reliable and pleasant Link is than most Metro routes serving downtown from the area. Plus, I would guess there is some number of people moving to SE Seattle primarily because it allows them to use rail – sort of a mini migration of people who want to commute via train.
That this line is seeing this level of ridership without substantial upzoning and with only pockets of new development here and there, despite being somewhat slower and less reliable than it could be since it’s at-grade and shares tunnel space with buses, is great evidence of how popular and useful this mode of transit can be.
Exactly. The Save Our Valley types boycotted Link for a year or two but are now gradually starting to use it. There’s also the strong market of riders from the airport and TIB, which has become established and is probably growing off-peak.
But this raises a question I’ve been wondering. Is ST studying who the new riders are? I’m curious how many moved to Seattle, moved to a Link neighborhood for the train, moved to a Link neighborhood and incidentally found a train, are sports fans, or are responding to greater visibility in the airport signs and travel guides.
Regular gas is over $4.00/g
Or it could be repeat users who just love Link.
Me I do my best every trip into Seattle to get my Link fix. It’s like still 5 years later so frickin’ cool, even though not one new station has opened in four & some years.
Might be thinking too much about the home/work/game/airport trips. I live carless in NE Seattle. Link means that my SE Seattle friends are now much easier to get to than they were 5 years ago. Amongst our crowd, whomever is nearest to Link tends to host more because they are easier to get to. And my SE Seattle friends think nothing of socializing downtown, hop on Link afterward.
Link is doing exactly what its supposed to be doing – providing trips big and small, important and mundane.
…to EVERYONE in Seattle.
If this trend continues, it certainly suggests that Central Link is the big winner in the ridership growth contest. While that’s great, i do wonder what we should do to reverse the trends of the stagnant or declining services.
ST Express ridership is still growing, just not as fast as Link. Increasing ridership is all about continuing to add more peak trips to crushloaded routes (545 and 550).
I don’t see how to increase Tacoma Link ridership without restoring frequency.
Paratransit is mostly about the split formula with Metro, but it also reflects Metro’s efforts to train riders to use the fixed routes, where possible.
Paratransit ridership decreasing is a good thing. Maybe it also has to do with Link with real level boarding being more accessible than buses.
“How has the opening of Seattle’s first all-day rapid transit line effected your life?”
For my life, 0 benefits, 1 negative. It made the trip to the airport slower. When I moved to Seattle in 2008 there was an express bus from downtown to the airport. They got rid of it when they built the light rail, so instead of a nonstop bus, you have to stop 11 times. The bus used to drop off/pick up right at the baggage claim, whereas the light rail is a longer walk. Link doesn’t go anywhere I want to go except for the airport, and it does that worse than the bus used to do. Oh, and the fare is higher than the bus fare. I like light rail (rode the El and Metra daily when I lived in Chicago) but Seattle’s is crap.
I’m glad you were able to build your plane flights around the 194’s schedule, and that you never got stuck in traffic while riding it.
Funny, the 194 almost always got stuck in traffic when I rode it and usually took 45-50 minutes where as link usually takes 35-40 minutes. Also it’s able to carry way more people and serve more neighborhoods in the process.
I don’t remember its schedule being particularly restrictive. The frequency wasn’t a problem (given that you have to be at the airport early to allow time for security anyway). Maybe if I had late-night flights it would have been a problem? I always had a fine experience getting to the airport on the bus. I think it was the 174, not the 194, but can’t remember for certain. I don’t remember it getting stuck in traffic (and I was generally riding it on major travel days like Thanksgiving Eve).
Serving more neighborhoods is great, but if the question is ‘how has it affected my life’, then all it means to me is more stops, a higher fare, and a longer walk. If the question is ‘how has it affected the city more broadly’ then I’m interested to hear from others who have the data. The charts show that ridership is increasing. Is that people switching from buses? Is it people switching from cars? Is it a population increase? Similar to Mike’s question above- who are the new riders?
On evenings and weekends, the 194 was down to every 30 minutes. After around 7 or 8 PM, it didn’t run at all and you had to take the 174, which was indisputably slower than Link. The 194 was sometimes full and you had to watch a bus go by and wait for another one. It was often late. The schedule did not include the 5+ minutes it took to get off the bus at the airport while everyone ahead you paid their fare (it was pay-as-you-exit back then). Also, even going nonstop on the freeway, the 194 was not really that fast. It frequently topped out around 45 mph, even while the cars around it were doing 70. Meanwhile, the 194 was definitely slower than Link in getting through the tunnel and SODO, which is where the real bottleneck was and still is (not the Ranier Valley). Oh, and anyone who wanted to get to the airport from the Ranier Valley was pretty much resigned to driving or taking a cab, as the bus required you to backtrack all the way downtown. Finally, the 194 buses had zero luggage racks and had a lot less open space to put a suitcase than the Link trains do.
Compared to a city like Chicago (or basically any city) we haven’t really started building our light rail system yet. That is why these numbers are so surprising and so encouraging. Most cites serve their most important areas first. For political reasons (including a fear of cost overruns) we didn’t. We didn’t start with a line from the U-District to Beacon Hill. We will have most of that soon, though. We will cover just a bit of the U-District, but that will still leave all the buses with a hard choice — slog through traffic to get to the station by Husky Stadium or continue their existing route. In a few years we will add the U-District (along with less important areas such as Roosevelt and Northgate). That will be the main core of our system, and it will a good starting point.
Then we will serve Bellevue, a big business hub. Hopefully soon after that we will serve other important areas, like Ballard (and the rest of Northwest Seattle) as well as the area in between (greater South Lake Union) and the densely populated areas in the Central District. It will take a while, and until then — at least your ride to the airport is scenic.
In five more years, we’ll be eagerly looking forward to the opening of Norrhgate Link, whilst the ST3 lines will be deep into route planning.
Link has been great for me! Living in the Mount Baker area, I’m almost in the center of the line(for now). Whether going to the stadiums or a movie downtown, to going to work at the airport, Link has made getting around by transit much better and easier than it was before. My car use has almost stopped with use mostly for Costco runs, and long road trips. Before Link, if I had wanted to go to work by transit, I would have to either take the 42(which I miss) or the 7 and transfer at International District to catch the 174. Hardly a fast and efficient way to the airport. Is the Link stop any closer than the bus stop at the airport? Depends on which airline you are departing from, a while ago United was at the north ticket counters, while international departures where at the south ticket counters, and all the other airlines were in the center.
At what point will a third car be added? Getting awfully crowded, especially during peak.
Yeah.. would add basically zero operational cost.
Right now there’s a wall in the Pine Street Stub Tunnel separating the U-Link construction from the Central Link operational area. Until the wall is torn down, there isn’t enough room in the tunnel to turn around trains with more than 2 cars.
Sound Transit’s 2014 Service Implementation Plan seems to envision running 2 car Link trains through 2019, though at 6 minute peak headways.
Whenever I’ve ridden during peak, Link has been well-used, but nowhere near crushloaded, like some of the buses are. After events is another matter.
The electricity to move an extra car in the train is somewhat less than the cost of the operator, IIRC.
With regard to crowding, page 17 of the SIP shows the average maximum passenger load for Central Link throughout the day, for both the northbound and southbound directions. The average max passenger load does exceed the number of seats during the AM peak going north (reaching about 175 passengers per train), and even more during the PM peak going south (reaching about 250 passengers per train), but its still far from the claimed maximum of 400 passengers per 2 car train. I think these numbers are from 2012, so they’re probably at least 10% higher now.
Unless ridership growth slows sharply, I will be surprised if Sound Transit won’t need to change their plans and expand to 3 or 4 car trains during peak before 2020- even going to 6 minute headways in 2016 and without adding in U-Link ridership, 10% annual increases in maximum average passenger load would get up to about 365 passengers per southbound train during the PM peak in 2019. I would expect that adding in the people who switch from the 43, 49, and 71/72/73 to Link will exceed the crushload at peak.