Sound Transit Ignores Link Ridership

Earlier blog posts concluded the Federal Way extension’s  December 6th debut, like the earlier Lynnwood extension debut, would “Benefit the area” by demonstrating Sound Transit’s light rail trains' failure to attract the ridership needed to reduce congestion. That CEO Dow Constantine’s claim for 200,000 light rail riders to and from the Super Bowl would have taken more than 20 hours.

Light rail ridership should be readily available as riders are tallied by laser devices over the train doors.” Yet, Sound Transit continues to delay releasing the results. Their latest data available, the December 2025 “Ridership-Ridership”report showed the three Federal Way Link stations had 4929 average daily boardings. The four Lynnwood extension stations had 8539 average weekday boardings. Both small fractions of Sound Transit pre-debut projections.

 

This lack of ridership would seem to be worthy of discussion. Yet neither the February 12th Sound Transit Systems Expansion Committee meeting video nor the agenda of the February 26 Board meeting included any mention of light rail ridership.\

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For example, how much did the extensions cost Sound Transit? They currently budget light rail vehicles at ~ $30 per mile. Thus a 4-car round trip on the 8 mile extension from Angle Lake to Federal Way costs $1920  The 8.5 mile extension from Northgate to Lynnwood costs $2040 per round trip.  Assuming the current schedule requires 120 trips, the Federal Way extension costs  $230,400 daily, the Lynnwood Link, $244,800.

 

Again, the December ridership reports reflect the seasonal variations.  However, the report results in Federal Way’s 4929 riders costing  $49.75 per rider.  The Lynnwood Link’s 8539 riders, $28.67per rider. Those  costs per rider will presumably drop with later ridership data. 

 

The bottom line is the lack of riders on both extensions would seem to merit Sound Transit Board attention, especially regarding additional ST3 extensions  Their continued plans  for extensions beyond Federal Way and Lynnwood indicates they’ve chosen to ignore this harbinger of future problems.