In December 2025, Sound Transit welcomed the first passengers aboard the Federal Way Link Extension. The three new stations on the 1 Line provide improved transit connectivity for many south King County residents. An accompanying bus service change in March 2026 improved frequency on many bus routes and adjusted a few bus routes to better connect with the new Link stations. While some routes lost ridership, many other routes welcomed new passengers. Link increased the total number of transit trips in south King County with nearly 10,000 combined weekday boardings at Federal Way, Star Lake, and Kent Des Moines stations.
This article will discuss the stop-level ridership data for select routes in south King County. To minimize the impact of seasonal changes in ridership, the analysis compares data from March-August 2025 with data from March-August 2026. The plots below show average weekday boardings and alightings at each stop, boardings are shown with positive bars, alightings are shown with negative bars. The different colors represent the number of passengers boarding/alighting during that time of day. The data for 2025 is shown as slightly faded. Click on each plot to open it in a new tab.
Route 181 serves as the primary east-west route between Federal Way and Auburn. Federal Way Transit Center has long been a busy stop as it connects passengers with many other bus routes. The new Federal Way Link station caused a 46% increase in Route 181 boardings at that stop each day, from 293 to 430 passengers. Overall ridership on Route 181 increased by about 114 passengers and the ridership at other stops was not significantly impacted.
Route 183 is a coverage route between Federal Way and Kent, via the new Star Lake station. Prior to the Federal Way Link Extension, the route connected to freeway bus routes 177, 193, and 574 at I-5 & 272nd St. That connection generated about 4 boardings per day for Route 183. Now, 71 passengers board Route 183 each weekday at Star Lake station, a 1,675% increase. This is still just a fraction of the 1,600 weekday Link boardings at the station as many Link passengers use the station’s 1,100 space parking garage. Both of the route’s termini, Federal Way and Kent, have a slight decrease in ridership. This may be from some passengers switching to Link at Star Lake rather than to another bus in Federal Way or Kent.
The A Line now runs in the 1 Line’s shadow between Federal Way and Tukwila. Thanks to fast and frequent service along Pacific Hwy, it was the most productive Metro route in 2024 . Now that Link offers a faster trip north from Federal Way, this title may be in trouble. Stops across the A Line have reduced ridership from 2025. At Federal Way Transit Center, boardings on the A Line have dropped 19%. Likewise, the number of passengers boarding the A Line at Pacific Hwy & 240th St (near Kent Des Moines station) has been cut in half. Part of this severe drop in boardings is due to the new A Line stop that opened next to Kent Des Moines station. When factoring in boardings at that stop, there is still a 24% decrease in A Line boardings near Kent Des Moines station. A similar change occurred at International Blvd & 200th St, next to Angle Lake station. Many passengers who previously rode the A Line to the Link 1 Line’s southern terminus in 2025 are now opting to board Link at one of the new stations. Despite this drop in ridership, the A Line still provides critical local service along Pacific Hwy. As the area continues to develop, ridership on the A Line will rebound.
Route 165 connected Burien and Des Moines with Kent and Auburn via the newly opened Kent Des Moines Link station. Since the new station opened, boardings on Route 165 at the nearby stops (Pacific Hwy & KDM Rd, KDM Station, Pacific Hwy & 240th St) have increased 50% (109 daily passengers). This increase is offset by 70 fewer boardings at Kent Sounder Station, suggesting some passengers have switched from Sounder to Link. The route’s termini both have slightly reduced boarding counts as well, likely also due to the new station. For instance, someone traveling between Normandy Park and downtown Seattle may have switched from the 165 + H Line to 165 + 1 Line for their trip. In August 2026, Route 165 was replaced by routes 164 and 166.
The Federal Way Link Extension also impacted a few Sound Transit Express bus routes. As these routes are operated by Pierce Transit, we do not have detailed ridership data for them (yet). Instead, this analysis will use the overall route ridership comparing April 2025 to April 2026.
Ridership on Route 574 increased about 10% year-over-year. This is mostly from more people traveling between Lakewood or Tacoma and Link in Federal Way. Route 574 previously connected with Link at SeaTac, so the FWLE likely did not attract too many new passengers. The August 2026 service change truncated Route 574 at Federal Way in exchange for a much needed frequency boost, which should further increase ridership.
Routes 577 and 578 form the primary bus connection between downtown Seattle and Federal Way. Most times of the day, these routes are still faster than Link for that trip. As a result, ridership has not changed too dramatically. Boardings are down 10% on both routes. Routes 577 and 578 both saw a more significant drop in ridership immediately after the FWLE opening in December, but ridership has since rebounded. Whether the recent ridership increases are due to the routes’ lower travel time or due to the World Cup and other seasonal ridership changes is still up in the air.
Closing Thoughts
The Federal Way Link Extension is already making its mark on travel patterns in south King County. Local routes connecting with Link are busier than last year. Meanwhile, ST Express routes and the RapidRide A Line lost some passengers to Link. The August 2026 service change further improved local connectivity in south King County that should make transit the best option for even more trips.
While this article only covered a few routes, detailed ridership data for most King County Metro routes is now updated at seattletransitridership.com. In addition, the impact of the Crosslake Connection on bus routes in east King County was discussed in a recent article.
Did you look at the impact of the jump in frequency of the 574 on the 594 at all? That’s my major decision point heading north. Usually it comes down to a bird in hand, and I take the one that comes first. I’m starting to rethink that, however.
I remain disappointed with the 574 running every 15 minutes while the 1 Line runs every 10 minutes. If the 594 is not overcrowded, I would hope getting the 574 down to 10-minute headway would be an urgent priority.
The big mistake is not combining the two routes. Having a completely different route serve Federal Way is very expensive. The 594 should just stop at Federal Way along the way and run a lot more often. Oh, and get rid of the 577 while you are at it. (What to do about the 578 is more complicated.)
I think every 15 minutes is fine.
I agree you could have combined the 574 and 594. If I were riding the 594 north and looked at the crash map (google traffic) to see what I-5 is looking like, a stop in Federal Way would give me a chance to avoid the extremely frequent backups that are pretty standard heading north starting at Boeing Field, and switch to Link. If doesn’t look too bad, I can stay the course and hope someone doesn’t shut down some or all of the highway crashing on I-5 right after we pull out of Federal Way.
This is all dependent on destination, however. Downtown Seattle, West Seattle, Rainier Valley, U-district. They all have slightly different probabilities to consider in your decision making. Frequency of the route you are considering transferring to. Number of transfers. Speed. The reliability of Link as well. Sure I-5 is by far the biggest chaos monkey in the room in terms of regional north-south travel, but Link isn’t as trustworthy as it should be.
It looks like ridership on the A Line is down across the board and that surprises me. I get why ridership at some of the stations would be down. If you are headed from Federal Way Transit Center to Rainier Valley then you just take link the whole way (instead of the A Line followed by a transfer to Link at Angle Lake). Thus for the northbound A, boardings are down at Federal Way while alightings are down at Angle Lake. Similarly, I can see why a significant number of people take Link from Federal Way to Highline College instead of the A Line. But what I don’t get is the decrease in ridership along the way. South 288th for example saw a big decrease in ridership even though it isn’t close to a station. If anything, I would assume it would see an increase. Some of those riders continue to take one-seat trips (to the college, the airport, etc.) but the riders who transferred to Link now have a faster trip. Yet ridership is down, just like almost every other stop. Maybe people who used to take the bus are driving to the station or getting dropped off now. Then again, maybe this is just random noise and ridership on the A Line hasn’t been hurt by Link as much as it looks like.
“Link increased the total number of transit trips in south King County with nearly 10,000 combined weekday boardings at Federal Way, Star Lake, and Kent Des Moines stations.”
I wrestle with this sentence. Some riders shifted away from Angle Lake clearly dropping it by about 2.5-3K average weekday riders. There seemed to also show minor drops at TIBS (not to mention parallel bus routes).
I would have said something like this:
Link increased its total number of light rail trips in south King County with nearly 10,000 combined weekday boardings at new Federal Way, Star Lake, and Kent Des Moines stations — of which about 3,000 of these boardings shifting from other South King stations (mostly Angle Lake station).
Federal Way Link Extension still added thousands of system riders. If station exits are also considered, the impact can be considered doubled. So it seemed to add about a net 14K average weekday system boardings ((10K-3K) * 2) to Link.