WA: Mike Lindblom: Light rail ridership: Will new Redmond stations fill empty Eastside trains?

Catch an Eastside light rail train some morning, and you'll find room to stretch out.

Two-car trains built to carry 300 people take only a couple of dozen. In March, a mere 3,240 passengers per day boarded the 6-mile starter line.

For several months, ridership met or beat modest forecasts of 4,000 to 5,700 daily boardings, peaking at 6,668 in June, before dropping off in December. It's a far cry from opening day April 27, 2024, when revelers took 35,000 rides between the South Bellevue and Redmond Technology stations.

So far, the novelty of Eastside light rail has outpaced its practicality.

Sound Transit expects the line will get a substantial boost starting Saturday, when the $1.2 billion extension to Marymoor Village and Downtown Redmond stations opens. Officials won't guess at a specific number.

There are reasons for hope, because Redmond is home to lots of apartment dwellers who might be lured out of their cars for the chance to reach Redmond Technology Station at Microsoft headquarters in six minutes, or downtown Bellevue in 17 minutes.

Eastside local trains running near empty

After carrying more than 5,000 daily riders last year, Sound Transit's Eastside starter line has seen a steep drop in passengers since December, with some stations serving fewer than 300 people a day in March.

During project design, the agency estimated 5,900 passenger boardings a day in those two stations, but not until people can ride from Redmond all the way into Seattle, on the overdue I-90 segment aimed to open this winter. That's less than what the ST3 ballot measure of 2016 depicted, at 7,000 to 9,000 boardings.

Ridership predictions are notoriously unsound.

Mass transit projects in general, including Sound Transit, have historically miss the lofty goals they advertise while seeking federal grants and public tax votes, but are improving, federal studies say.

Sound Transit has taken heed, shifting to lower projections based on hard experience and a general downturn in transit use during the pandemic, while also giving wide ranges that can't go wrong. However, Seattle-area transit use increased 12% overall last year, a favorable sign.

Although the winter drop-off isn't well understood, the sluggish Eastside ridership can be largely blamed on construction delays at I-90, which have kept this a limited local line for now.

Sizing up Bellevue's tall skyline, and 35% population growth since 2008 in Bellevue and Redmond, to 231,000 residents, officials have said the Eastside is its own economic powerhouse that will patronize light rail. Lately the message is, don't pass judgment until that much-delayed I-90 light rail connection to Seattle opens, offering Eastsiders quick rides to downtown, the University of Washington or a Seahawks game.

"That's when you will see it really become useful," said transit-board member Claudia Balducci of Bellevue, who serves on the Metropolitan King County Council.

Low expectations

Back in the mid-2010s, Sound Transit said the 2 Line from Redmond Technology Station to Seattle would carry 50,000 daily riders, which the Federal Transit Administration cited while loaning $1.33 billion toward the project's $3.7 billion budget.

Those numbers are considered obsolete.

The new figures across a whole 59-mile network, with spokes from Seattle to Lynnwood, Redmond, and in Federal Way next spring, are 145,000 to 189,000 daily boardings by late 2026.

That's equivalent to three full sports stadiums.

Not shabby, but a far cry from the 280,000 daily riders Sound Transit claimed it would carry across slightly less territory, in 2008 while wooing voters to pass the ST2 sales tax proposition.

Charles Prestrud, analyst for the free-market Washington Policy Center think tank, emphasizes that even though light rail served 6 million more trips in 2024 than in 2017, overall there were still 34 million fewer transit rides at Sound Transit, King County Metro and Community Transit, a troubling sign of weak long-term demand, and bus riders being compelled by route changes to take a train.

What does success look like?

One benchmark is how many long-term transit customers you create for the steep taxpayer investments.

"I'd basically say anything in the $50,000 to $75,000 range per rider would be very good in the U.S.," said Eric Goldwyn, research partner in New York University's Transit Costs Project. Goldwyn recently served on a paid expert-review panel advising Sound Transit's board. "Now, inflation is a thing so we can revise up a bit, but that $100,000-per-rider zone where projects are these days is alarming."

Sound Transit's Eastside usage would pencil out close to $100,000 per permanent customer, if the 17-mile megaproject meets its original 50,000-passenger aspiration that Sound Transit trumpeted in the 2008 campaign, but no longer promises.

By NYU's standard, last year's $3.1 billion Northgate-Lynnwood extension will excel if it meets the original promise of 47,000 to 55,000 daily riders, roughly $60,000 per permanent user. Since its debut, the boost is about 25,000 riders, propelling the total 1 Line through Seattle and SeaTac to about 95,000 daily boardings, with plenty of potential to grow, especially while I-5 undergoes years of deck resurfacing that begins this July.

In some cases, Seattle's rail corridor has performed as advertised.

The downtown-airport line opened in 2009 was once so empty that operators drove teeny one-car trains at night for a while. An FTA study flagged light rail's unusually low ridership, only 62% of the promised 37,800 forecast trips in 2011. However, the masses finally arrived in 2015 and Link then reached its milestone.

Seattle's own benchmark for good value is the 2016 extension from Westlake to Capitol Hill and University of Washington stations, a miraculous 8-minute ride proving that destinations near legions of young adults are the best medicine. The $1.7 billion project added 33,900 riders, missing its FTA-endorsed target of 48,100, but still considered a win.

John Marchione, retired mayor of Redmond, once argued the Eastside is busy enough to sustain its own line, even before news broke that defective track ties would delay the connection over Lake Washington. He's still bullish enough to predict 50,000 daily riders between Redmond, Bellevue and Seattle.

South Bellevue Station's 1,500-stall parking garage, lightly used now, will be attractive for Seattle-bound sports fans, and maybe for commuters next year, along with the 1,400-stall garage at Marymoor Village. In all, today's local eight-station line will extend to 12 stations, including 2026 stops at Mercer Island and Judkins Park.

"The base assumptions on the ground have changed, with people working from home, and the location of jobs," Marchione said. "I think it'll get to that number, just not as quickly as they first forecasted."

Sound Transit might fetch a new clientele. Now that there's a station near the 40-acre off leash area at Marymoor, board members are discussing whether to allow dogs onto the trains.

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