Seattle light rail patronage continues to climb month by month 

However, 58% of the year has elapsed, and ridership has reached only 48% of the 2010 forecast.

This updated page covers Seattle's light rail passenger counts from the first day of revenue service July 20, 2009 through July 31, 2010.  In July 2010 this train attracted an estimated 700,252 riders, the highest monthly total yet experienced. Sound Transit held a small celebration of its first year of service on Monday July 19, described here by Sound Transit and here by The Seattle Times.

The ridership trend for light rail is upward so far in 2010. Every month of the first seven this year experienced more light rail boardings than the month before. But with 58% of the year having passed, the ridership for January through July is about 3.9 million, only 48% of the 2010 total annual forecast/target of 8.1 million. 

According to Sound Transit's numbers, the light rail line needed to reach about 26,600 average daily riders per weekday by mid year 2010 in order to reach 8.1 million total by year end.  However, as of July, the weekday average is only 24,145. Sound Transit light rail now needs a very strong second-half surge to meet its 2010 forecast. Perhaps the Mariners under their new manager will have an end-of-season winning streak that brings crowds by train to Stadium Station. Working against meeting the target would be the kind of drop in ridership experienced from September to November of 2009, shown in the charts below.

The Mariners baseball team opened its home season on April 12, and light rail serves the Safeco Field game venue directly at Stadium Station. The Mariners, Sound Transit, and Port of Seattle are all promoting light rail use for attending baseball games. And in fact, results provided by Sound Transit for the first four months of the season show that Mariners baseball has been an overall good thing for Central Link light rail ridership. The photo shows an opening day scene on a Link rail car before the game.

The Seattle Sounders soccer team also plays games at Qwest Field near Stadium Station. During July, the average ridership on 16 game days (baseball or soccer) was 23,152, while on 15 days with no game the average was 21,988. Multiplying the differential of 1,164 by 16 game days yields 18,624, providing a rough estimate of the ridership gain brought to this system in July by stadium access, about 2.6% of the total for the month. 

Of course folks have many other reasons to ride light rail besides attending ball games. Game day average ridership rose about 3% between June and July, while non game day ridership rose about 8%. 

All train rides were free a year ago on the opening weekend July 18-19, 2009, and the ridership estimate counted by hand for these first two days of light rail was 92,397, with a machine count of 66,792. These two free days -- with boarding levels similar to the 45,000 per day forecast for 2020 even if further line extensions were not completed by then -- are not included on the charts below.  Fares are now $1.75 to $2.50, depending on distance traveled.

The overall impression from the daily ridership graph above is great variation from day to day, but with an overall positive growth trend since late November 2009. The lows on the chart above are generally Sundays and holidays, when fewer trains are running. Focusing only on weekdays (see chart below) raises the daily average.

On September 19, 2009, Metro bus routes were revised to drop off more customers at light rail stations, and ridership showed an uptick in the days following. October, 2009 average daily weekday boardings were 16,192, a new monthly high. Ridership for some reason then trended downward until December 19, when the long-awaited Airport extension opened, and then an upward trend manifested at the end of the year. Ridership flattened in January at a weekday average of 15,965.

Ridership picked up in February 2010, reflecting the long-planned discontinuance of the Metro route 194 airport express bus on February 6. The 15-day moving average line (red) on the weekday chart below reflects an increase of about 1,000 per day in February, and another 1,000 in March, with a continuing upward trend at month end and on into April as baseball season opened. A reasonable assumption is that much of the gain comes from the market of customers who formerly took the route 194 bus, plus as noted above, baseball game attendance starting on April 12.  In May, the moving average is seemingly oscillating around a mean of around 20,000 per day, including weekends.

Toward the end of June, the moving average went above 20,000 per day and stayed there. On one day in June and another in July the light rail line saw over 28,000 boardings for the first time since opening weekend when rides were free..