Ridership from the 2 Line has pushed Link to be the busiest light rail system in the United States in April 2026.

Sound Transit’s Link light rail system continues to break its own ridership records. After the highly-anticipated Crosslake Connection opening at the end of March, system-wide ridership jumped 46% to 4,675,216 passengers in April 2026. This equates to an average 155,840 boardings across the 1 Line, 2 Line, and T Line every day. Since the pandemic, Link ridership has increased significantly. Seattle’s growing population and growing light rail network have boosted Link’s ridership above pre-pandemic levels. The following Link extension projects have opened in the past five years.

  • October 2021: Northgate extension (1 Line)
  • September 2023: Hilltop Extension (T Line)
  • April 2024: East Link Starter Line (2 Line)
  • August 2024: Lynnwood City Center extension (1 Line)
  • May 2025: Downtown Redmond extension (2 Line)
  • December 2025: Federal Way Downtown extension (1 Line)
  • March 2026: Crosslake Connection (2 Line)
Average daily Link ridership since August 2003.

Sound Transit has not shared the ridership breakdown by line, but it’s safe to say the 2 Line is pulling its weight. Several ST Express buses have lost ridership due to the 2 Line, but their lower ridership is more than recovered by the increase in Link boardings.

For the first time in its 23 year history, Link is the busiest light rail in the United States. In recent years, the top spot has alternated between the light rail systems in Los Angeles, Boston, and San Diego. Link has trailed as the distant 4th busiest system, until now. While Link is classified as light rail, it is more of a hybrid system. North of downtown Seattle, the tracks are entirely grade separated and several sections use deep bore tunnels to slash travel times by providing a direct route between stations.

Monthly ridership for the 10 busiest light rail networks in the United States, over the past 10 years. Link ridership is shown by the thicker blue line.

While Link is the busiest light rail system, there were 10 busier heavy or commuter rail network around the country in April 2026. These include: New York City’s MTA (203M boardings in April 2026), Washington DC’s Metro (18M), Chicago’s CTA (11M), Boston’s MBTA (9.3M), Long Island Rail Road (8.6M), Metro-North Commuter Railroad (6.3M), Philadelphia’s SEPTA (5.8M), NYC’s PATH (5.7M), San Francisco’s BART (5.7M), and New Jersey Transit (4.9M).

All ridership data referenced in this article is from the Federal Transit Administration.

109 Replies to “Link Ridership Soars 46% After Crosslake Connection Opening”

  1. As ST’s official dashboard still hasn’t been updated with March or April data it would be great if you included a source in the article

      1. Thanks, if you select “Central puget sound regional transit authority” on the “Agency” dropdown on the right side and hit apply it shows the data

    2. Thanks for catching that. I’ve added a note to the end of the article with a link to the FTA dataset.

    3. It’s still a joke compared to Skytrain in Vancouver BC with 500,000 in daily ridership with two major new lines under construction!

  2. Typo in the caption: “pushed Link to be the light rail system in the United States” (fortunately we’re not the only one!)

  3. To be fair, I think I would classify all the top light rail systems as hybrid systems. LA has tunneled and elevated sections, and is extremely long. Boston is a legacy system with a downtown subway, and while San Diego runs at-grade for long sections, there’s only two relatively short sections that are median/street running, with the vast majority of the rest being in shared railroad rights of way. Which is probably just to say that light rail works best the more metro-like it is, especially in busy areas. This is no surprise – the proto-light rail systems of Germany that inspired US light rail (Stuttgart in particular) are often tunneled in downtown. The common comparison to German systems is actually sort of funny, since the Stuttgart stadtbahn is basically just the MBTA Green Line but more extensive.

    This may be controversial, but I think Sound Transit is way too timid about leveraging at-grade options. The issue on MLK is the lack of priority, not necessarily the fact that it’s at-grade (though yes, that is an issue to some extent too). It’s frankly embarrassing that the train that gets more ridership stops at any lights at all. I think we should realize that this is unusual even for American light rail. TriMet may crawl through downtown Portland, but it almost never stops at lights in between stops because it has absolute signal priority. Even the CTA runs at grade in sections, but those are absolute signal priority areas where crossing arms drop. Running the signals on MLK to fully prioritize Link would be challenging, particularly with long crossing lengths for pedestrians, but it is 100% feasible if we are willing to moderately delay car traffic. The fact that we aren’t is a fundamental issue, and one that represents a real failure of leadership from Sound Transit.

    1. This may be controversial, but I think Sound Transit is way too timid about leveraging at-grade options.

      I agree. This is definitely the case in Ballard. The main drawback is that it makes automation harder. But that is largely an all or nothing thing anyway. Ballard can’t be automated if it is paired with Rainier Valley or Bellevue, because of the intersections it has to deal with in those areas.

      Running the signals on MLK to fully prioritize Link would be challenging, particularly with long crossing lengths for pedestrians, but it is 100% feasible if we are willing to moderately delay car traffic.

      Agreed. The signal for the cars should be based on the trains, not the other way around.

    2. I think top speed is a good differentiator of the line.
      Link and Trimet can both go 55 mph while most Brookville model streetcar built in 2010s weren’t operated above 35 mph. I am sure if that model can even go above 50 mph if right of way warrants.
      One exception is Atlanta Streetcar which uses the same Siemens S70 but operates fully in mix traffic.

      1. *I am not sure if that model can even go above 50 mph even if right of way warrants.

      2. Max speed on the Skoda design that is used as a basis for all the modern USA streetcars is supposedly 45 mph.

      3. Yes – but most systems people refer to as “light rail” use a train similar to Link. Streetcars are legally light rail (by the FRA definition), but classified differently for the majority of systems by the FTA. Tacoma Link being Light Rail (LR) instead of Streetcar Rail (SR) is unusual, and in my opinion wrong. Portland Streetcar is classified as SR in FTA data, as are the other systems I’ve looked at (Milwaukee, KC).

        I suppose this classification is probably a vestige of Tacoma Link being imagined as “proper” light rail on its conception, but it really should be SR since there is no serious plan to connect it to our “proper” light rail network.

  4. I don’t understand lumping Tacoma Link in with central Link numbers, since Tacoma Link is so much smaller. It would be like combining Link 1 and 2 lines with the SLU or First Hill streetcars. For tracking purposes, Streetcars should go into their own bucket.

    1. As Troy has repeatedly pointed out, the T-line had originally been intended as a Redmond-style link extension that would connect seamlessly to the rest of the system. Maybe the reporting somehow is still bucketing based on them not screwing Tacoma like they did.

      1. And, the irony is that, even when real Link reaches Tacoma, there will still be a forced transfer to reach downtown Tacoma, even though the T-line tracks are already there.

    2. FTA reporting is by operator and broad technology categories. It’s how they have to track operations of systems that vary in lots of ways across the country. There are odd operations found in many places, like Boston’s Ashmont- trolley.

      It’s also important to remember that these are boardings and not full transit trips. Systems can add riders by removing or reducing parallel bus service, for example. San Francisco Muni Metro was historically very overcrowded in the past so many parallel bus routes were not reduced or eliminated. A restructured bus system now could force more riders onto light rail, but I doubt that the riders there would be eager to return to their crush load days.

      1. Yeah, it is just a coincidence. They are the same agency and technically the same mode so they get lumped together.

    3. Sound Transit does report the T Line separate from the 1 and 2 Lines to the FTA. I combined them since the T Line is technically part of the Link system. In April, the 1 & 2 Lines had a combined 4,588,557 boardings. The T Line had 86,659 boardings.

    4. There are a lot of legacy systems in the country, so it is difficult to come up with a national standard to absolutely answer which rail should be categorized as what. To some extent that is also no that important for the purpose of National Transit Database data collection. Streetcar and light rail are pretty close compared to other weird modes this database has to accommodate.
      There are other things more controversial than T Line being considered the same thing as Link Light Rail like the database consider Amtrak Keystone Service a commuter rail.

  5. If a former commenter were still here, he’d probably say something like … Another win for Link! The facts don’t lie. Riders are abandoning Metro like a sinking ship. PS, can this blog put up countdown clock for Issaquah Link?

      2. I must be guessing the wrong person because the one I’m thinking of wouldn’t be so excited about Issaquah Link or say Metro is going down in flames.

    2. Countdown clocks require a definite opening time. There’s still no concrete Issaquah Link project, just a concept. We need to know whether it will be built, what will be built, how much it will cost, what contingencies engineering studies find, and when construction will start. All that will be decided years in the future, probably in the 2030s. Would you like a clock for when they start the planning and EIS? But we don’t know even that.

      1. I wasn’t asking for a countdown clock. I was still channeling a past commenter. He used to ask for countdown clocks. Btw, I’m not making fun of it. I agreed with him on that.

        Very clever, biblical, back from the dead reference from ND.

    4. “Riders are abandoning Metro like a sinking ship.”

      If riders were abandoning Metro like a sinking ship, then Metro ridership would be down 90+% from pre-covid levels. Instead it’s down only 40%.

      1. Many trips have shifted from Metro only to Metro + Link. So boardings rise from 1 to 2 but it’s still just one transit trip.

        1. Route 45 plus Link is two boardings and one linked trip; likewise, Route 45 plus the E Line is two boardings and one linked trip.

        2. Just this week, I rode Route 7 to Judkins Park and transferred to 2 Line to reach a Downtown appointment. I could have stayed on Route 7.

          So I didn’t change the Route 7 boarding total but added a trip on the 2 Line. So that looks like a ridership increase on paper but it wasn’t in reality.

          Actually the total travel time was probably awash. The track crossing gate already locked even though the Link train was just pulling into the platform. I had to wait 10 minutes for the next train. But I didn’t know this until I had already gotten off the bus and walked up the escalator.

          Had the bus not had to load four walkers, two strollers and about 30 riders (half didn’t pay) and dealt with someone dropping a jug of milk which exploded on the bus floor, it would have gotten to JP two minutes earlier and saved me time.

        3. Closing the pedestrian gates when the train is approaching the station, I can kind of see, as you don’t want to depend entirely on the train’s brakes to avoid people getting run over. Ideally, when the train is already stopped, the gates would briefly open to allow people to run and catch it (at the cost of maybe delaying the train a few seconds). But, standard signalling software, of course, probably doesn’t allow for that.

        4. Yep. I pointed that out below. We really should be seeing a bigger increase in Link ridership given the money we’ve spent (at least 250,000 if not something approaching the 500,000 in Vancouver). But bus ridership should be flat at worse, if not higher than ever (like Vancouver). Instead the bus ridership is so much lower than before that the relatively small increase in Link ridership doesn’t make up for it. The John Niles of the world have a point — maybe we should have put all of our money into improving the bus system. Or maybe we should have built a better rail system (like they did in Vancouver).

        5. @asdf2:

          It was the first time I encountered the locked gates. I was a bit surprised that they locked before the train doors opened upstream. The result is that the gate is locked for at least 90 seconds.

          East Main is supposed to have two lines with both directions being crossed. That’s a train every 120 seconds at 4 minute (8 minutes per line) headways or 90 seconds at 3 minute headways (6 minutes per line).

          If 4 Line goes into design, this must be addressed. Even if 4 Line merges at South Bellevue the track crossing appears like a major problem. Either the station wi need to have a new deck with elevators and stairs above it, the tracks and platform will need to be switched, or the western platform will be functionally unusable. Keep in mind this is currently where riders are supposed to transfer between Issaquah and Seattle so there will be lots of riders.

        6. @Ross Bleakney – At this point, I’m with the John Niles for the future. Decent transit in our metro area depends on cancelling ST3 and defunding Sound Transit (above maintenance on the existing system).

      2. Not to be pedantic but KCM is down around 25% in terms of raw ridership (with 5-10% service hours still missing!)

        1. And 10-20% more stolen from suburban areas and never restored (permanently closed bus stops)… To boost urban service from 15 mins to 10 mins.

        2. The commute demand region-wide might also be down permanently. Some people go to office twice a week and some go 3 times a week. I ‘d imagine those travel needs were driving big part of transit demand.

  6. When I look at a comparison chart of several operations like this, I’m more saddened and troubled about how so many systems have not recovered from their COVID ridership loss. That includes Portland and San Francisco.

    The overarching decline in most of these systems seems to be a long-term cultural shift (not just COVID) that likely will affect ST at some point in the future. It points to a bigger societal challenge about using rail transit.

    The declines seem to have structural factors. Certainly working from home, online shopping and ride-hailing are parts of the reason. But the rail transit industry generally needs to determine if there are things that can be done generally to reenergize ridership beyond just building more track and stations.

    I would first suggest looking to ways to make stations and trains more appealing. It takes several years to get results, but too often our cities — even major “liberal” cities — just take the trains and stations for granted once lines open. From rethinking station designs (like lighting, allowing vendors, bathrooms, security, cleanliness) to rewarding station areas (like quicker and safer walking access, upzoning, relocating public functions closer to platforms to branding) there could be further actions that could stem the decline.

    I cannot point to a single strategy that could work. It’s probably different for each system. But future light rail demand can’t ultimately pin most of its hopes towards building more tracks until the existing tracks and stations can be proven to be more enticing rather than less.

    1. I think the dialogue is different here essentially only because of really the timing of high-quality extensions. Portland and SF are the same systems pre and post Covid, and I suspect overall transit system ridership is down in Seattle by a similar margin to Portland and SF. Covid coincided with a major bus restructure related to Northgate Link, and this fundamentally shifted riders from buses onto trains in Seattle. Neither Portland or SF are able to replicate the current success of Link because they’ve already built their Northgate Link equivalent. I think it’s more about demand patterns than amenities.

      For my money, I think transit agencies in the US have been far too focused on the work trip historically and the relative decline of work trips thus represents a structural challenge that is still not really being addressed. Yes, the network is changing to adapt to more all-day demand and less peak-hour demand to an extent, but I think there’s reason to believe that our social patterns in most of the US are not aligned. Even transit-friendly people in Seattle I know are in the “infrequent or rarely rides” camp if you discount the work trip, and non-work non-walk trips in the US are super-duper majority car trips (certainly well over 90%). The exception is really for people who do not have cars at all, and I think improving the social basis for non-work trips on transit is pretty important for ensuring that transit funding remains politically viable into the future.

      1. About San Francisco: The new Central Subway could have been a game changer to make Muni light rail ridership grow. But it didn’t.

        There are multiple factors involved. One is that SF shed tens of thousands of residents as well as even more jobs within the City. Another is the line is so deep that people don’t use it for short trips (a harbinger for DSTT2 as well as planned SLU stations) because it takes longer to walk through a station than to wait for a ride a train.

        But the decline of Union Square and nearby San Francisco Center (Westfield) is also impactful. When residents gave up shopping and dining in Downtown San Francisco as major retailers and chain restaurants closed, going Downtown for reasons besides work declined.

        While working can generate 10 transit trips a week, non-work trips from shopping to dining to meeting up with friends can add 4 to 10 more transit trips a week. Conversely, work from home can reduce weekly work transit travel from 10 trips a week to 8 or 6 or 4 or sometimes 0. Combine the two and transit demand can really suffer.

        1. Central Subway is a much less important corridor than Geary, and even less than existing corridors (particularly Market – Mission). Even if Muni hadn’t hamstrung the project by making it all of one stop long with a bad transfer, it wouldn’t have been even passably equivalent to Northgate Link. Northgate Link involved completely redoing the bus lines to and from a transit market on par with Downtown.

          Only about one third of trips are work trips, but basically all of our transit planning efforts in the US have been work commute oriented. I think it’s clear that hasn’t been successful, and I put part of the blame on neglecting the other two thirds of trips that aren’t as visible or are judged to be less important

        2. It they had the money, they wouldn’t end line deep bottom of Chinatown. It is a implementation choice not a service planning choice. After all it is still better not doing anything at all.

    2. Ridership correlates highly with downtown employment, and the Seattle downtown has higher post-covid vacancies than many other cities. Exacerbating that, the system design was focused on the suburb-to-downtown commute rather than a denser more urban design that would provide more ubiquitous circulation within the urbanized portion of the region – that makes the correlation between ridership and downtown office usage even stronger here.

      If ridership hadn’t increased by adding the east line, that would be notable, but in this case we just shifted a whole bunch of riders from buses to trains. When they end regional express service on I-90 that will cause a further tick – but this is describing math, not ridership trends.

    3. Subway-like networks are already positioned for the off-peak transformation because they run every 5-15 minutes all day and evening every day. Amenities like bathrooms are something that passengers need at all times, not just off-peak.

      1. That’s a great point, Mike. The high cost of building and operating light rail has already been incurred. The focus needs to be getting more trips onto it — and that’s so much more than just work trips.

        I don’t think many elected leaders don’t fully fathom that while light rail can be used for work trips, it’s sunk costs and high frequency set it up to where it should do much more. Seattle benefits from having colleges, SeaTac, nightlife and some medical facilities easily reachable from Link.

        I see the region sliding backwards with the ST3 extensions. The majority of planned ST3 stations regionally are existing park and ride sites already served by express buses. Those that aren’t aren’t being reenvisioned as anything more than token stops at expansive employment centers where most jobs are still more than 1/4 mile walking distance from the planned platforms.

        And while there is a push for higher density apartments near planned stations, I don’t see any of these cities actively involved in creating much besides housing and jobs at them.

      2. “The high cost of building and operating light rail has already been incurred.”

        That’s similar to what Reece Martin keeps saying. If you make a big investment in grade-separated infrastructure, you should fully leverage it by making service as frequent as possible, and have robust feeders. Otherwise you’re wasting part of the big investment.

    4. MAX blue and Red lines are doing ok. Green and orange are doing the worst.

      Link goes to some important places, such as Bellevue, UW, and Northgate

      Downtown Gresham has all the density of Magnolia Village. Downtown Beaverton could be a good transit destination, but it’s separated from MAX by two parallel busy highways and a lot of hostile intersections. Think two Aurora Ave through Shoreline block apart. Hillsboro has a decent downtown and a small hospital complex, but it’s highly auto oriented. It’s not quite as bad as Beaverton, but it’s not great either.

      The orange line skips all the density of Sellwood to serve a golf course.

      The planned Vancouver line skips Vancouver to serve a freeway park and ride that would be better served by the existing express bus.

      These types of problems are present on the ST3 parts of Link that aren’t the Redmond extension, but the core Redmond-Lynnwood-Federal Way section is pretty solid. Sure, Frderal Way to Seattle is slower on Link than driving, but within the 99 corridor it’s a decent speed improvement over long distances on the A. The traffic jam extending north from the HOV lane ending at Northgate doesn’t seem like it’s going to magically go away, and I’ve been on buses stuck in that mess starting as far north as Highway 530, and once in Mount Vernon. So, it seems like people will continue to want an alternative to that.

    5. “in this case we just shifted a whole bunch of riders from buses to trains”

      It improves their trip quality, the quality of the network, and the availability of transit options in those areas. People gain a benefit by having transit available every 8-10 minutes rather than 15-60 minutes even if they don’t use it today, because that means it will be there when they need it. Those lesser waits make some trips feasible on transit that weren’t before. And Link creates a lot of new one-seat ride destinations that didn’t exist before, and train-to-train transfers to other destinations.

      The article says Link ridership increased more than ST Express routes decreased. So not everybody is coming from former bus routes. That’s also expected because you’ve improved the overall network: more and better trip options for a lot of people everywhere, both Link-only trips and Link+bus trips.

      1. Don’t forget the ST Link shifted riders away from Metro and CT bus routes too. It’s not just ST Express.

      2. But overall transit ridership is still way down (see comment down below). This is partly due to the pandemic (and its aftermath) but that still isn’t a good sign. The shift should come with a significant increase in ridership. I’m sure it has in some cases. But not enough to increase overall ridership.

        1. None of the largest metropolitan areas in the United States has seen over 100% recovery since the pandemic. Seattle is one of a few, along with Washington and NYC which have seen over 75% recovery.

        2. The bus I usually take was fairly full through 2023, even during the pandemic years, but it’s been down to 4-6 riders for the past 5 months.

          There’s recovery, and then there’s the current recession the country is entering.

        3. Yeah sure. Transit ridership is down in America. But my point is people are celebrating the increase in one mode while ignoring the decrease in another. It is pretty silly on the face of it. Let’s say we just took half our buses and turned them into RapidRide. No other improvements — just a change in what we call the routes (using letters instead of numbers). You would suddenly see a huge increase in RapidRide ridership. Does that mean it was a great project? Of course not.

          The point I’m making is that there is no evidence that the money spent on light rail has been particularly successful. It probably has in some ways but not in others. But there are so many moving pieces — and many of them are moving down — that it is very hard to make the case for it. Link is very large and yet it carries a relatively small number of riders. Overall transit ridership isn’t particularly good. This hasn’t been cheap to build, either. Despite being light rail, it is almost entirely grade-separated with big tunnels and miles of elevated track.

          In comparison, you can make very good case that our nearest neighbor is doing things really well. Vancouver has about half a million riders on the train and three quarters of a million on the bus each day. It is a fairly small city yet it has the third highest bus ridership in English speaking North America. Boston has more density but lags in bus and rail ridership. It basically has “old city” ridership but in a new city. Other than maybe DC — a much bigger city — no one has seen a bigger improvement in the post-war era. Even if you include “old cities” (that built outstanding subways in dense areas with dense stop spacing) it holds its own (or surpasses them). Yet we largely ignore that city while celebrating the numbers based on our choice of mode (which many argue was a mistake).

          We built a mediocre rail system with mediocre ridership. Now the big challenge is improving the buses to make up for it.

        4. “people are celebrating the increase in one mode while ignoring the decrease in another.”

          You have to go with the transit you have, not the transit you wish you had but can’t convince the government to do. You either use the transityou have to get to appointments, or move to another city. Some people would like to move to Vancouver or Chicago to have a better urban environment but not quite enough to do it.

          Seattle is not known for many sunny days, so when they do happen, people flock to Greenlake and such. Similarly it has been feeling like a long transit recession since 2022: frequency less than 2019, the driver shortage limiting options, unreliability due to congestion, lower post-covid ridership. So people are eager to celebrate any sunbreaks like higher ridership or Link openings.

          “Let’s say we just took half our buses and turned them into RapidRide. No other improvements — just a change in what we call the routes (using letters instead of numbers). You would suddenly see a huge increase in RapidRide ridership.”

          Has Metro ever done that? Converted a route to RapidRide with no improvements, or boasted about RapidRide frequency as a whole rather than individual RapidRide lines? I don’t think so, so it’s not a realistic scenario.

          “It is a fairly small city yet it has the third highest bus ridership in English speaking North America.”

          Vancouver has much better transit, walkability, and ridership than any US/Canadian city its size or even significantly larger. DC is the closest peer, with a very good metro network and station-area walkability for its size, and it’s so popular the metro has a lot of people even at 10pm.

        5. I don’t think so, so it’s not a realistic scenario.

          Of course it isn’t. That’s the point. Look, imagine we just painted all the buses plaid. Suddenly we would have a lot of plaid buses. We could then brag about how we now have the highest ridership of plaid buses in the United States. Hooray! Did ridership actually go up? No, of course not.

          We are basically doing the same thing. We have spent a lot of money on light rail. So far as we can tell, it hasn’t led to a substantial increase in overall ridership. People have just moved to using light rail in the same way they would move to using plaid buses (they had no choice). The system isn’t really better overall. Yet because people are focused on the one mode, they think we did something spectacular and worth the money.

          Vancouver has much better transit, walkability, and ridership than any US/Canadian city its size or even significantly larger.

          Exactly! We could have built something similar, but instead we are building this light rail “spine”. Their model is highly successful. It really isn’t that different than what most cities around the world would do. It is a basic automated metro, but with a strong emphasis on bus integration (which naturally suits the low-density cities found in the U. S. and Canada).

          But we didn’t build that. We ignored the freeways that could deliver good bus service and had our trains follow the same pathway even though there was ample evidence that is a really bad idea. We focused almost exclusively on length, and shortchanged the urban core. Then to top it all off, we chose light rail — a niche mode whose functionality we rarely take advantage of. Given all that, it is no wonder our bus integration is not particularly good. If you can’t do the basics right, you can’t expect something more advanced.

          Our subway system is mediocre by U. S. standards. It is poor by international standards. It is embarrassing compared to our nearest neighbor. But because it is light rail — arguably the wrong choice — folks celebrate it the way they would plaid buses.

        6. “Link is nice and all, but not nearly as critical in this area. It can’t be.”

          Ross, this feels like complaining about your steak being too juicy or your lobster being too buttery.
          I get it, you love the bus and have ridden it all your life and that’s great. But frankly you’re kinda missing the forest for the trees in complaining about people not caring about the buses as much as you compared to Link.

          Everyone I talk to who isn’t a transit nerd is happy for link. They’re very happy its here and is very high quality transit. And for many people in the region, it’s a game changer for commuting, game days, errands, weekend outings, etc. I’m good friends with well heeled white collar professionals and they were all excited for crosslake link to open. Getting those people to ride link or suggest it to their friends if they’re visiting is actually important because getting the upper middle class and upper class to ride means that future investment and support for the system is more assured than being left to die on the vine.

          While I agree the bus system needs more investment, you honestly have a blind spot in how you ride or die for it instead of seeing them as pieces of the bigger picture and not competing with other but rather complimentary.

      3. I am sure it is a success store for Link Light Rail and probably bad press for LA Metro, which operate much longer mileage, but it is not so much of a succuss story for the transit system overall in the area.
        I spent some time going through archived Metro schedule in 2019. I am sure at some location, there is a travel time reliability component as Link Light Rail expansion, but I just feel like there are more places where frequency and travel time is compromised during relatively less congested hours.

        1. Yes. Partly it is because the buses are so important. Link is nice and all, but not nearly as critical in this area. It can’t be. Link only covers a small subset of the city, let alone the region. Nor are we a stratified cities with Link covering the high-density areas. Other than the big three (UW, Downtown Bellevue and Downtown Seattle) we aren’t. Even then, Downtown Seattle is much more spread out than it used to be, and Link doesn’t cover First Hill, Belltown or South Lake Union (areas that should be considered downtown now). The buses have to do the heavy lifting and they are failing in that regard.

          Part of the problem is that the trains haven’t replaced that many buses. Like so much in our system, we are getting diminishing returns now. When Link finally made it to the UW, Metro truncated all the buses that ran express between the UW and downtown. This was huge. As it got to Northgate they did the same with buses from Northgate and Roosevelt/Lake City Way. Again, that is a lot of buses. But as Link moved northward, there really wasn’t much to cut. Community Transit shifted service, but those buses never carried that many riders. To the south there is even less savings. To the east we will eventually see some savings but nowhere near the UW/Northgate Link levels. The agencies have to spend a lot of time doing what they always did — run a lot of express buses.

          At the same time, Link is not thorough enough to allow for the type of grid you see in Vancouver. To get from Montlake to downtown either requires a transfer to a bus or catching an infrequent and awkwardly routed 43 (followed by a transfer to Link when the rider is actually very close to downtown). This would not be the case if there was a stop at 23rd & Madison. The same is true with the 31/32. The bus is forced to go north or south as it reaches the U-District because there is no station at the HUB (in the UW campus). The Northgate Station is laughably bad from both a network and walk-up standpoint. It is literally right next to the freeway and yet no longer has anything to do with it. This is not the terminus (with buses from the north serving it). Nope. It has crossing bus service but the buses can *not* go across. They have to go south to 92nd or north to Northgate Way. North-south service isn’t great either — First Avenue NE is used only for that segment connecting to 92nd and again, it abuts the freeway. Yet this station that seems to fail every rule in the book is the only one for miles. OK, not literally miles but it is 1.9 miles to Roosevelt and 1.4 to Pinehurst (as the crow flies). You would think that with such a big area to cover they would try and get this one right but they didn’t. Oh, and look at the amount of effort it took to just get Pinehurst Station — a station that *should* benefit Metro immensely. It is if they are two completely separate agencies, with their own agendas. ST is trying to build the spine; Metro is trying (and failing) to balance ridership and coverage. It doesn’t help that ST is providing Metro with so few favors.

          Which brings me to another problem. Even when ST (reluctantly) adds a station that is critical from the network perspective, Metro seems to screw it up. The last few restructures have been terrible. The future 75 and 77 are laughably bad. From Lake City, the 75 will head straight towards Pinehurst Station. But then, as if magnetically repelled by the station itself, it will turn south, away from it. The 77 will actually serve Pinehurst Station but it seems magnetically repelled by Lake City. As soon as it gets to the edges of it, the bus will make a hairpin turn, as if the goal is to prove Pinehurst naysayers right. It is by far the closest station to Lake City and yet it barely serves the latter.

          This isn’t the only place where restructures have failed. The greater Central Area seems stuck in amber, with very slow buses like the 3/4 and very infrequent buses like the 10, 11, 12 and 49.

          Meanwhile, you have the infatuation with “RapidRide” and “Swift”. I get it. The government helps pay for it. Might as well. RapidRide G (the only thing that comes close to real BRT around here) is actually a very good route. But even it is flawed as they failed to run contraflow through downtown.

          The only really positive thing are projects like the 8 and 40. We are taking lanes on major corridors! This is huge and should eventually lead to a better system. Likewise, the mayor’s funding proposal is huge, as it means that at least Seattle will have good bus service (sorry Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah, Redmond, Tacoma…). We should replace the streetcars with buses (since that would lead to a better transit system) but compared to all the other flaws that is a minor thing.

          We need to run the buses more often. We also need better routing. Link should be focused on higher ridership (per mile) and saving riders time (per dollar spent) not vague and largely symbolic goals like “serving” West Seattle or “The Spine”. We should be thinking about new lines that are automated and work *with* the buses instead of ignoring them. Otherwise we will look back at the immense amount of money we have spent and wonder why so few people still don’t take transit.

    6. We haven’t recovered either. Total ridership is still well below what it was from before the pandemic. This is striking, given:

      1) We invested a huge amount in the rail system.
      2) It should lead to more unlinked trips even without new overall ridership. For example, a trip from Lake City to downtown now counts as two trips (a bus and a train). Before the pandemic, it was one trip (on the 41 or 522).
      3) We have made other improvements in right-of-way for the buses.

      To put things in perspective, we peaked at about 650,000 riders a day in the region. I have been looking at quarterly data (not monthly) and we had less than 500,000 last quarter. The post-pandemic peak was about 510,000 (in the third quarter of last year). If Link carried an extra 100,000 riders since then (with no change to bus ridership) we still wouldn’t reach the high we did before the pandemic.

      Ultimately this increase in light rail ridership is just trivia (“What is Link Light Rail, Alex. I’ll take U. S. transit networks for 400.”). What matters is overall ridership as well as overall transit mode (and the cost to actually get there). It is hard to make the case that we are doing a good job based on the numbers.

      1. This slump in ridership is just one more reason to cancel the ST3 projects before they encumber the region and the ultimate guarantor of the region’s debt, the State — with a debt burden it cannot bear.

        The right thing is for The Legislature to revoke ST’s authority to issue new bonds during this construction lull. Then give counties and municipalities additional taxation authority to undertake “pay-as-you-go” capital projects, but not to bond them.

        Yes, this is “less efficient” because you might not be able to bore through four station vaults with your TBM, but rather have to do an extension one station at a time.

        I know, this sounds reactionary, but it avoids the risk that Un Grande Projet turns out to be a hideous “Dud” that leaves behind it a debt burden which it does not assist in amortizing through increased economic activity.

        As is widely agreed by Blog regulars, most of the ST3 rail projects are such Duds. In fact, with the sole exception of [a shallower] Westlake to Seattle Center they’re all Duds. Even the STRide lines as designed, except STRide 2, are small-scale Duds.. Certainly BAR is, and maybe even Graham Street.

        The STRide Lines are perfect for pay-as-you-go financing, because the various elements are mostly individually small and uncomplicated. And therefore cheap.

        Winter Is Coming, and I’ll be buried soon, so it won’t matter to me. But it will matter to most of you and to your children. And if the maniacs pushing Seventy-Five Year Bonds! have their way, your grandchildren, too.

        Just say “No”, pay a little bit higher taxes in order to build a few very useful improvements in the Northwest Corridor and through First Hill, one station at a time and enjoy a less-burdened life.

        1. Addendum.

          Although extending an Uptown line to Smith Cove is obviously wacko economically, it’s necessary because there has to be an MF somewhere and Interbay is a great place. It also provides a very good bus intercept which will provide some ridership.

        2. Not sure about revoking bonding authority, though some sort of drastic state-level intervention to stop wasteful ST3 projects and reset the plan might be a good idea. I see there is at least one proposal being bandied about for governance reform. https://www.theurbanist.org/op-ed-its-time-to-reform-sound-transit/. I am torn about whether we would be better off with more democratic accountability or instead, more politically insulated expertise. But the system we have now seems to be like the worst of both worlds.

        3. Scott, I probably wasn’t clear enough. The restriction against further bonding would only pertain to the “special” capital projects tax authorities to be granted. That is, a municipality could still sell tax revenue-back bonds, but only for general revenues, not the special voter-approved temporary taxes for specific projects.

          Things would not be all that different from the current ST model. Voters would authorize increased taxation for a stated project and as revenues were accumulated discrete pieces of the project would be completed without borrowing for the entire thing. If the economy booms, construction activity increases to consume the extra tax revenues collected. If it goes into a recession, construction on these sorts of additional projects” slows.

          I get that’s “pro-cyclical” and it’s considered “hip” by Economists to favor “counter-cyclical” projects. If the Nation as a whole wants to do that, fine. The Nation can print money to pay off the debt (“Sorry!”, bondholders); the State of Washington and especially its municipalities cannot.

          So far as reforming Sound Transit, this would simply end it except as an operating agency which it could probably do in its current form. The truth is that it has done what it was originally chartered to do; the Legislature did not envision WSLE, BLE or ILE. No, it doesn’t reach Everett or Tacoma, but “reaching Everett” was always a stupid goal — there’s no “there” there. Actually reaching Tacoma would be great, but the plans don’t. They reach two casinos and a performance venue.

          It would be much cheaper just to move the casinos and performance venue to Federal Way…….

        4. “Actually reaching Tacoma would be great, but the plans don’t. They reach two casinos and a performance venue.”

          Tom, it reaches Tacoma. I’ve lived here most of my life, and I can tell you that you’re frankly being overdramatic about it not going downtown. Alongside, there’s been zoning plans by the city to upzone the Dome District so that it feels less like industrial purgatory. But again, these things take time and will likely be a generational project like how the Pearl District and East Portland has been down in Portland when they opened the Streetcar.

        5. Zach: skipping major destinations and trying to serve them with bus connections ill suited to the job is what they did with MAX Orange and Green lines. Ridership on those lines can mostly be handled by a single light rail car. Every mid-day trip I’ve taken on them only have 5 or so people at most by the time the lone southbound car gets to Bybee Blvd. or Holgate.

          We know what builds transit ridership, and making it cumbersome to use isn’t it.

        6. I don’t disagree Glenn, as the Orange and Green lines are definitely the weaker lines that are part of Trimet’s MAX system.

          I’ll just add that Pierce Transit is also looking to the future right now as to what their future transit system will look like once TDLE is complete with both the planned initiative this year and the refining of their 2040 plan.

          Do I hope in the near future that Tacoma and Pierce leadership looks to study plans to connect Link to Downtown Tacoma, definitely. And I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up being part of long term discussions for future link extensions.

          I just think that some people need to calm down a bit about this not being ideal or perfect end point. Its frankly a bit aggravating to me as a longtime Tacoma resident because it’s still useful for me. I’ll be using it to come to get to tacoma whether I live in the city or not when it opens.

        7. Zach, they can upzone all they want, but the industrial purgatory will still have flames. Seriously, why would anyone move there? Why would a business locate there? Access to Seattle via transit, whether it be Sounder, STEX or someday Link has not proven itself to be much of a draw at all.

          The Pearl District is still “happening” but East Bank? Ouch. It draws a big crowd on July 4th for the fireworks, but the rest of the time? Crickets. I just walked from the Lloyd Center/11th Avenue Station to Interstate Rose Quarter and was shocked how many of the buildings are essentially empty. If Portland can’t hold office jobs, and they’re even leaving Downtown Seattle, what is the “Dome District’s” attraction?

          And ST can’t deign at least to put the station four blocks west at Pacific so that the most important bus line in Pierce County doesn’t have to make an eight block dogbone loop to connect?

        8. Tacoma Dome Link will be largely irrelevant. The streetcar is largely irrelevant. What will really matter in Tacoma is the buses. Pierce Transit has a pretty good network and good plans for the future but not enough money. They need to run the buses a lot more often and add some bus/BAT lanes.

          To put things in perspective, Pierce Transit ridership peaked in the second quarter of 2001, with just over 46,000 riders a day. Now it gets about half that. Sounder and the express buses are good for regional transit service but the area mostly just needs more bus service.

        9. I’ll just add that Pierce Transit is also looking to the future right now as to what their future transit system will look like once TDLE is complete with both the planned initiative this year and the refining of their 2040 plan.

          Part of the problem with the TDLE is that it doesn’t improve the network very much. It actually creates an awkward situation. The Tacoma Dome is not a major destination. Nor it is in the middle of downtown. It is off to the side, which means that there aren’t that many buses that serve it right now. It is “on the way” for some routes, and out of the way for others. Thus the agency has a tough choice: detour a route to the Tacoma Dome or live with a two-seat ride to get onto Link. This is a problem with the BRT plans to replace the 1 (Pierce Transit’s most ridden bus route). The intuitive routing is what the 1 does right now. Just go straight on Pacific, right through downtown. But instead they want to send it to the Tacoma Dome. This wouldn’t be an issue if Link went to downtown. This is not the only route like that. Ultimately you end up spending precious service hours trying to serve downtown (which is also a major hub for other buses) and the Link station.

          The same thing would happen if Seattle ended its light rail line at King Street Station. (If anything, that is more a part of downtown than the Tacoma Dome, but you have the same problem.) A lot of the buses coming from the east of downtown have to be sent south. In many cases it just doesn’t make sense. Buses like the 2, 3, 4 are just out of luck while buses like the 10, 11, 12 and RapidRide G have to be extended south (on a corridor that has more than enough service). It is awkward and challenging.

          Nor will Tacoma Dome Link save the agency much money (if any). When UW Link opened, Metro shifted thousands of service hours from the UW-downtown routes to local routes. I don’t see that with Pierce Transit. They still have to run the 500 and besides, it isn’t that costly to run (since it doesn’t run that often). Sound Transit might save some money but they are also spending a lot to build this so it is hard to tell when (or if) they will ever come out ahead. Tacoma Dome Link won’t replace Sounder or the express buses to Seattle — it will only replace a section of the 574 (and again, not a particularly expensive part, given the frequency).

          For Pierce County riders, the best thing ST could do is continue with the express buses and Sounder while just giving Pierce Transit grant money for right-of-way improvements and extra service.

        10. “Part of the problem with the TDLE is that it doesn’t improve the network very much. It actually creates an awkward situation.”

          I agree.

          It’s sadly what happens when car-brained elected officials craft a referendum intended to entice car-brained voters to vote yes. ST3 was designed to get yes votes; not to actually build an efficient transit system.

          And when Tacoma Dome Link Station opens over budget and two decades after the vote (because of the Fife/ Puyallup lahar delta design challenge) and gets predictability low usage for several more years, elected officials will hire a consultant to figure out how to repair the illogical end point they chose in that 2016 transit project shopping cart frenzy called ST3 writing.

    7. All the hand wringing about lack of recovery to pre-Covid transit ridership levels may be somewhat misguided. Most of the local roads used by automobiles haven’t “recovered” to their pre-Covid levels of traffic either. I don’t have time to do a deep dive into the data, but a cursory look at the data shows I-90, 520, I-5 still haven’t matched their pre-Covid levels of congestion. With less congestion on the roads, public transportation is less appealing. But it also shows that commute patterns have undergone a significant shift since Covid.

      1. I said it above but none of the largest cities in the US have recovered to pre-COVID levels, and taking into account all modes, Seattle is actually one of the stronger ones. The idea that Crosslake is a failure because we haven’t returned to 100% of pre-pandemic usage, something which no major city in the country has done, is a bit of a strange standard to use.

        1. Seattle’s recovery is not particularly strong, even by U. S. standards. But it should be no surprise that the U. S. is terrible, as almost all of the cities have shrunk service — and that includes Seattle. Yet Seattle has spent a fortune on transit which thus far hasn’t made much difference compared to cities in the U. S., let alone the world.

          It is quite likely that if we had simply improved bus service we would have higher ridership. Of course the obvious solution would be to have improved bus service and a more traditional subway system (instead of the hybrid metro/commuter-rail/light-rail). This means the subway line would be much smaller but with a lot more stations. Better yet, follow the Vancouver model and have a traditional metro but with strong emphasis on bus to rail transfer (and of course, better bus service).

      2. The news has been saying that highway congestion returned to prepandemic levels a few years ago. So either congestion returned even if the total number fewer, or that metric is inaccurate for Pugetopolis. Congestion pushed Metro into unreliability again like it was in the early 2010s. In the mid 2010s Metro had enough revenue and a larger STM to fix reliability with standby buses, but it doesn’t have those resources now so many routes have reverted to notoriously late.

    8. Also its the decline of downtowns, for 80 years they’ve become less and less prominent and had more and more competition from auto oriented suburbs. Then the COVID/WFH/Fentanyl situation has had a further impact in the last 6 years. The main reason for transit is getting into a congested downtown, most downtowns in the US aren’t too congested and aren’t the center of action anymore (Seattle is so more than most).

      1. “Also it’s the decline of downtowns, for 80 years they’ve become less and less prominent and had more and more competition from auto oriented suburbs.”

        In 1950 (76 years ago), the entire Seattle metro was just 1.1M compared to 4.1M today. Similarly, King County has grown from 733K to 2,345K in the same time period.

        So while Downtown Seattle is less important proportionally, it still has markedly gained in activity in the past 80 years.

        That said, the hypercharged Amazon office boom era of a decade ago has now been over for a few years. It’s a reality that different leaders still are not fully facing. They believe that the recent rosy times will magically return.

        The ugly truth is however that population growth nationally increased by 60M in the past 25 years but is projected to drop to less than 30M in the next 25 years — mainly driven by less immigration. That forecast trend if correct ripples through everything in the future including the potential for growth in the local economy and real estate market both regionally and locally in Downtown and the suburbs.

        If one looks at population as a bakery, the past was trying to get a slice from many new pies that were coming out of the oven. Well there are going to be lots fewer fresh pies emerging so there won’t be the ability to get new slices as easily for Downtown as it has been.

        1. “the hypercharged Amazon office boom era of a decade ago has now been over for a few years. It’s a reality that different leaders still are not fully facing. They believe that the recent rosy times will magically return.”

          Nobody expects an Amazon-sized growth spurt to repeat. It was obvious by 2017 that there was no other company that was likely to do that. Seattle had the opportunity to zone for another Amazon-sized headquarters in the Northgate regional center and it declined to. So where would it go?

          However, office-space recovery and an Amazon-sized growth wave are two different things. Seattle can expect the downtown vacancies will eventually fill up with natural population growth and new businesses; it’s just taking a lot longer than in the past.

        2. Don’t bet too much on that “natural population growth”, Mike. Whether JDV or Li’l Marco becomes President in 2028, the harassment of immigrants is bound to continue, because the retrogrades in the Mississippi Valley and Dahn Sath demand it. So who’s going to create those new businesses? At this time, way more than half of the Nasdaq by value was created by immigrants.

        3. Some people predicted Seattle should stop upzoning or building housing because growth would stop in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026, but it still shows no sign of it. When it actually happens decisively and it’s not just a short-term drop, then we can transition to a no-growth future. But too many times it has been predicted prematurely. Even if immigration and births aren’t keeping up on a nationwide average, people are still moving to Pugetopolis. Enough that we’ll supposedly need another airport.

        4. We should loosen zoning rules even if we stop growing. Let the market decide whether it is worth adding a small apartment or a big house. Building an apartment (or condo) could still make sense even if not that many people are moving here, especially given the high cost of housing. Even if the cost of rent drops it may still make financial sense depending on the cost of construction (which itself is influenced by the regulations).

        5. Seattle induced it on itself. Stop playing the blame game.

          Obviously the pandemic and Republicans made it worse, but the majority of damage was self induced.

        6. “Some people predicted Seattle should stop upzoning or building housing because growth would stop in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026, but it still shows no sign of it.”

          Actually there has been quite a slowing of population growth outside of Seattle. The growth for the past five years has been much more marked inside the Seattle city limits. I’ll use Census Bureau estimates here.

          Seattle added about 47K estimated residents between 2020 and 2025. King County added and estimated 75K residents for the same time period, or just 28K residents outside of Seattle.

          Between 2010 and 2020, Seattle added about 125K residents. King County added a whopping 338K, of which 213K were outside of Seattle.

          Dropping from a numerical growth of over 21K a year in King County but outside of Seattle in the 2010’s to just 5.6K a year since 2020 is a huge deal!

          Seattle is currently enjoying a market shift towards city living. However the larger economics of King County outside of Seattle has slowed pretty drastically.

          [Edit: Fixed math typo]

        8. Yeah, there has been a significant shift towards urbanization. Not only is Seattle adding more people but the suburban areas that are relatively urban (like Bellevue) are adding a higher proportion as well.

        10. @ jd:

          OFM data also show that a majority of King County population growth is inside Seattle too. Seattle had about 1/3 of the King County population in 2020. So these OFM data show that numeric County population growth outside of the Seattle is still much slower (less than 50%) since 2020 compared to the decade before.

        11. Guys, population growth in Seattle is not going to drive ridership on far-flung Toonerville Trolly extensions of Link. Job growth probably would, but, again, who’s going to start businesses to refill the towers? Vanilla Americans don’t do that, by and large. Most businesses, large and small, are started these days by immigrants. Since America has bared its teeth at the foreign-born of any immigration status, those eager entrepreneurs from India, East Asia and Eastern Europe are going somewhere else now.

          Assuming the future will be an extension of the past is usually a very good business model, until it isn’t.

  7. Several systems elsewhere have had service cutbacks — especially less frequent trains. That has contributed to their ridership stagnations or declines. So comparing the boardings from one year to the next is not revealing how some of these other systems are just less desirable to use because of worse frequencies.

    While total ridership is a great armchair comparison, a better indicator of system success is probably riders per service hour. Having 50% more ridership by offering 100% more service hours (due to multiple new extensions) could be considered as a good thing (more riders) or a bad thing (fewer riders per service hour). Add to that the performance result of shifting people from bus to rail, which complicates measuring productivity.

  8. 155k daily riders? That’s insane for a US light rail system. More than the Boston Green Line, ties LA (light rail only, excludes heavy rail) for the #1 spot (in a smaller metro area with fewer track miles).

    1. It is about the same as Calgary and significantly less than the Toronto streetcars. But yeah, high for a U. S. light rail system.

    2. Post covid yes. Pre covid the green line was hitting 200,000 per day (71 million ish pet year)

    3. 155K is an impressive estimate. I was expecting the results to be in the 130K to 140K range.

      I’ll note too that the opening weekend was in March rather than April. So that opening surge is not skewing the numbers.

      Recently, we saw ST retract the initial January 2026 data as there were some days where the totals jumped beyond reason. So the NTDB data is still probably subject to being adjusted.

      ST is now 3 months behind on posting Link boarding data to their own ridership web page. That data has a daily reporting option for Link to see any anomalies. It strikes me as odd that these data are still not posted. One reason could easily be that there are reporting calculation problems. Until the Link ridership stats are posted to their data pages and meet a comparison test, I hesitate to declare the 155K completely factual.

      All of this is curious but no longer detrimental. ST voted to screw over Ballard already — and not use the capital shortfall as an opportunity to make ST3 more useful to riders. And the Board basically overlooked ridership (and transit travel time) in their decision. As a result, we have several decades ahead of us where Link boardings will rise more, but productivity will crash as low ridership segments open in 10-20 years.

  9. “but their lower ridership is more than recovered by the increase in Link boardings.”

    Yeah that seems to confirm my observation. I don’t know how 271 is doing these days, but I think I’ve seen way more people than Link can possibly divert from 271/550

    1. The average utilization of the South Bellevue P&R supports your observations. It still isn’t completely full, but I’d bet that it has gone from ~25% utilized pre-Link to ~75% utilized on weekdays now.

  10. Whatever happened to monorail between Balllard, downtown and West Seattle? As I recall, it was approved several times by the voters. Seems like we really need it now.

      1. Yeah, and the sad part is that after the ROW had already been purchased that was given up in the “foreclosure”. This is a repeated mistake that’s taken on may forms in the last half century or so that has fundamentally crippled the ability to move forward. The ERC and East Lake Sammamish are a couple of examples. The Woodinville subdivision from Redmond to Woodinville could probably be clawed back.

    2. People finally woke up to the realization that the technology isn’t suited to a “metro” type high-volume line. It’s quite slow and cumbersome to move a straddle-beam switch, so it ideally operates in a “dog-bone” loop with the two sides of the loop squeezed together to form a double-track “main line”.

      It would probably “do” though in an era when transit use struggles to regain its previous heights.

      1. The monorail failed because its financing had become non-viable, on top of all the other issues skeptics had. The first initiative (1997) created the monorail project. Three initiatives tried to kill it but failed. A referendum (2005) to continue the project failed with a 65% no vote.

        Project revenue was heavily dependent on a variable-rate car tab tax, which an Eyman initiative gutted statewide, pulling the rug out from under monorail funding. The people running the monorail commission had little rail-transit experience (even less than Sound Transit) or finance, so they didn’t know what they were doing. Revenue was so tight that it wouldn’t accept free transfers from other modes. That put me in a dilemma, because I really wanted to ride the monorail, but I’d probably end up riding the parallel bus underneath the tracks to avoid paying double fare for monorail+bus trips (which would be practically all my trips). The maximum speed of the monorail was 35 MPH, which would permanently limit the monorail to long travel times and not transform transit like it could. (Link’s maximum is 55, and light rail can go up to 65 and maybe even 80.) In the end, the budget was so tight that part of it was single-tracked (limiting frequency to 20 minutes, again substandard), and the referendum would have deleted half the line (I think the northern half, Ballard). So there wasn’t much left to save.

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