Sound Transit has released their July Ridership Report and Link is still going strong, up 16.7% overall.
Average daily ridership for Link in July was:
- Weekday: 77,081 (+16.8%)
- Saturday: 57,037 (+15.2%)
- Sunday: 45,017 (+17.7%)
Other weekday modal ridership stats:
- Sounder: 17,355 (+6.7%)
- Tacoma Link: 2,839 (+2.0%)
- ST Express: 66,411 (+0.5%)
- Sound Transit Systemwide, +8.3% Weekday, +9.2% Total Boardings
My charts below the fold.
I’m starting to think we might crack 80k daily ridership for Link in the next year or to.
Assuming the trend holds…
Hopefully, it won’t be too much work to reformat the chart when we rack 100k :)
At least something good is going up faster than rents.
I think we will break 80k daily by years end the way the trend is going.
Possibly, although if not in August (July/August are the ridership high points each year), which seems a bit of a stretch, my guess would be not until next April.
Still and all, good news!
Any surprises here? For the record, I’m not proud of the increased mileage this year is putting on my car, so nothing sarcastic or transit-baiting ever intended.
But along with LINK’s numbers, some lessons here. This isn’t about pleasure driving or even comfort. It’s about approaching-zero reliability of any single rubber tire being in motion any given I-5 milepost between Canadian and Mexican borders. Same for any connected arterial.
LINK is exponentially popylar because there is so much less in its way than for any other service. Which indicates to me that exact same thing will happen for anything to do with buses. Not ragging on anyone for not doing it. Know how much is against it.
Really wish we had a Federal Government that considered returning motion to a critical Federal highway a defense priority. 70 years updated to transportation needs on 2017, best filled by loaded transit vehicles, whatever material on the wheels. Also wish we had a Federal Government.
But I am saying that bus service acceleration should be priority alongside rail, or even slightly ahead. This isn’t an ideologically philosophical rail vs bus matter. It’s how much ridership we can add, how fast, by doing it.
Full Disclosure also means revealing info that $4000 bill for a new hybrid battery is rushin’ under my wheels like in the Jackson Browne song “Runnin’ on Empty.” Unfortunately, gas mileage irrelevant on this one.
Mark
Also need to re-word ideas on mode-priority. Experience and bias again, but I’d be looking for chances to deliberately design bus service so that it can be steadily converted to rail without interruption of service. As was intended for our own joint-use.
Wasn’t supposed to shut the Tunnel down for two years. But time-length was also result of major advancement: availability of low-floor equipment capable of 60 mph. Eliminating both wheelchair lifts on vehicles, and massive cost of raising platforms.
Might be good rail corridor priority to at least investigate: Is this a line where we can put moving buses where previous planning specified pink dots?
Mark
This is the slightest increase for Link between June and July since 2013. It’s probably due to sporting and special events in both months. Still, it may be a harbinger that Link is approaching its demand ceiling before Northgate opens unless a 520 restructure among other restructures happens.
80K may happen with the Ausust data but ST staff won’t release that until the October 5 committee meetings. There seems to be those that get great delight by announcing things at meetings rather than post data on line when it’s ready.
There is still plenty of room for those 520 commuters on trains heading out from UW if they can manage to make the connection work. Its a dramatic difference between commute direction during rush hour.
“Demand ceiling?” Give me a break. There is absolutely no indication that Link ridership growth is approaching zero, and to somehow extrapolate 16.8% growth to insinuate that we are approaching zero growth is a bit far fetched to say the least.
The data still contains Angle Lake, and there will be month to month fluctuations, but lets at least try to stick to the facts here.
This is good news. We should be happy about it.
I agree. It’s ridiculous that this data/report isn’t made available online sooner. We shouldn’t have to wait 45 days for the data each cycle.
How quickly does Metro get their ridership report out?
LA’s MTA has a policy of releasing their monthly ridership numbers 15 days after the prior month.
http://isotp.metro.net/MetroRidership/Index.aspx
If I was a resident of King County, which I’m not, I would advocate for similar performance from Metro.
When U-Link opened last year, ST was releasing data within two weeks after a high day occurred.
BART posts monthly ridership tables within four days of the end of the month.
Spend the money to make the Tacoma Link useful and a revenue route.Start extending it to atleast 5 miles.
I would like to push for PM weekday rush hour (specifically 5:30p to 6:30p) as a regular chart? It would be comparable with other transportation datasets.
A side comment about maximum ridership. 0% growth is one measure of maximum ridership. ST needs to use its maximum design value of 12,000 riders per hour per corridor per direction. When Metro 41 brings a northbound 920 riders per peak pm hour onto light rail, when we have room for 2800 new riders on the Northgate segment. Full and the old “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing” will become new commentaries.
Can cars be added to the 2:30 south bound train from king st. Station?
Again, very overcrowded and I’m catching people that are standing and falling into my lap.