Time and time again, we wonder: when will transit rider growth diminish? And time and time again, we’ve been pleasantly surprised that it hasn’t happened! Not only do people clearly love transit, people are simply moving to communities and taking on lifestyles than necessitate it. That’s great news for organizations like Sound Transit that get to occasionally bask in the glory of wildly positive news.
Yesterday, Sound Transit got to do a little bragging about their 8% annual growth in systemwide ridership. The agency now has a daily weekday average of some 109,000 boardings. That brings the total number of boardings systemwide to 33 million for all of 2014. This level of growth is vastly outpacing the national average for transit agencies, which stands at just 1.8%. So, just where is all of this ridership growth going?
Sound Transit says that Central Link now has average weekday ridership in excess of 32,924–a 13.7% increase over 2013 while Sounder and ST Express have weekday ridership averages of 12,694 (a 9.6% increase) and 60,944 (a 6.7% increase), respectively. In total numbers for 2014, Central Link light rail had 10.9 million boardings (a 13% increase from 2013) while Sounder and ST Express had 3.4 million boardings (an 11% increase from 2012) and 17.6 million boardings (a 6% increase from 2013), respectively.
If you can’t tell where the shining star is here, you’re missing all those double digit growth numbers on Link! Matthew Johnson over at Seattle Transit Blog has done a great job of consistently showing the amazing growth on Link over the past few years, and all data shows that this train ain’t a’stoppin’ anytime soon.
Stephen is a professional urban planner in Puget Sound with a passion for sustainable, livable, and diverse cities. He is especially interested in how policies, regulations, and programs can promote positive outcomes for communities. With stints in great cities like Bellingham and Cork, Stephen currently lives in Seattle. He primarily covers land use and transportation issues and has been with The Urbanist since 2014.