WA: Tacoma Link ridership has grown since expansion. How have new stations fared?

The T Line, once known as the Tacoma Link, has seen 1.5 million boardings since 2024, exceeding both pre-pandemic levels and Sound Transit estimates two years after the public transit agency launched several new stations, data shows.

Opening in September 2023, the Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension added 2.4 miles to the city’s 1.8-mile streetcar line and more than doubled the number of stations, bringing passenger service to the Stadium and Hilltop districts. Sound Transit officials had projected the bigger T Line — whose five cars in use on a normal weekday each can hold about 100 people — would serve 2,000 to 4,000 daily passengers by 2026.

Since 2024, ridership has largely hovered around the high end of those estimates or surpassed projections, according to the agency’s publicly available ridership data through July.

There were 3,618 average daily boardings per month in 2024, a News Tribune analysis of the data shows. That figure has increased so far this year to 4,079.

T Line ridership has also healed from a four-year sharp drop that began at the start of the pandemic, according to the analysis. Monthly average daily boardings sank from 3,658 in 2019 to 1,282 between 2020 and 2023, the analysis shows, with some of that decrease affected by a 10-week closure for project construction in October 2022.

The ridership data is medium-level quality, meaning it has some value in data-informed decision making but should be used with caution, according to Sound Transit’s website. The data is collected from automated passenger counter sensors near passenger doors and reflects best-available estimates to account for any errors or missing information, the agency said.

In interviews, agency and city officials said they’re encouraged by streetcar passenger activity following the Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension’s completion and there’s capacity to transport more passengers, although the T Line’s exact daily passenger maximum wasn’t immediately clear. The line runs 162 trips on weekdays, 150 on Saturdays and 52 on Sundays, according to Sound Transit spokesman David Jackson.

“I think we’re pretty pleased with how ridership is going,” Jackson said. “Light rail, in general, has recovered pretty well from pandemic declines both in Seattle and Tacoma.”

Tacoma City Council member Kristina Walker, who sits on the Sound Transit board, told The News Tribune that the line has room to grow ridership, which officials said they expect to happen as more people become familiar with the service.

“I’m really pleased to see the numbers,” Walker said. “I think it’s showing the use and need that we have for transit in the community.”

On Sept. 4, Walker and other members of Sound Transit’s Rider Experience and Operations Committee received a presentation on ridership and other data to assess the T Line’s performance two years in. Benjamin Marx, Sound Transit’s acting director for service delivery options, told the committee that average monthly boardings climbed nearly 170% between 2023 and 2025.

The T Line operated 99.5% of scheduled trips thus far in 2025 and received no more than six complaints each month since May 2024, according to the presentation. New T Line stations

The $282 million Hilltop Tacoma Link Extension, which brought the streetcar line’s total number of stations to 12 and relocated the Theater District Station, was part of the voter-approved Sound Transit 2 ballot measure in 2008, Jackson said. Intended to better connect Tacoma to the regional transit network, the extension opened following five years of construction, multiple delays and $65 million in cost overruns, according to previous News Tribune reporting.

Its seven new stations have accounted for roughly 42% of all T Line boardings since 2024, the data analysis shows. The Stadium District, serving Stadium High School, drew more than 158,000 boardings through July and was the most active new station.

The top-three mos- boarded stations overall through July were stations that existed prior to the extension, according to the analysis. The end-of-line Tacoma Dome Station saw about 312,000 boardings since 2024 — the most of all stations.

“As is often the case, terminus stations tend to be amongst the highest ridership stations for any line,” Marx said during the presentation earlier this month.

Walker said it was possible to make a number of analyses about activity per station. The Tacoma Dome Station was “always going to be the big hub” since it connects to trains and buses, according to Walker, but she also said she wasn’t ready to draw any conclusions at this point from the station-specific data.

“No matter where they come into the system, that’s a person that’s not in a car or in our streets,” Walker said.

Even a station that has been relatively unpopular at this juncture is meaningful, according to Walker. For instance, thousands of people relying on the South 4th Street Station — a new station that’s been the network’s least boarded — wouldn’t be able to take light rail if it wasn’t there, she said.

Tacoma Council member Jamika Scott, who represents the Hilltop neighborhood where she was born and raised, told The News Tribune that community feedback and personal experience has been positive toward the neighborhood’s new stations.

With nearly 122,000 boardings since 2024, the Hilltop District Station has been the sixth-most boarded station on the T Line, according to ridership data. The St. Joseph Station, a terminus also in the neighborhood, has been the fifth-most active station, accruing more than 151,000 boardings, the data shows.

“For the most part, the benefit seems to be the main thing I hear about it, rather than hearing a bunch of negativity about it,” Scott said. Down the line

Beyond adding new stations, the Link extension also ushered in another change: fares. The T Line had been free to ride since its inception in 2003 but now costs $2 for adults. In lieu of fares, a business collective called the Downtown Tacoma Partnership had been paying a $29,000 annual subsidy to Sound Transit, The News Tribune previously reported.

During the extended T Line’s first full year of operation in 2024, Sound Transit collected $314,000 in fare revenues, according to the agency’s 2024 fare revenue report. Thus far in 2025, fares have brought in $180,000, according to Jackson, who said those revenues go toward the line’s roughly $20 million annual operating costs.

One thing the extension did not do was reduce streetcar arrival times from 12- to 10-minute intervals as promised. Ten-minute intervals proved too difficult to maintain due to “right of way” challenges and offered too tight of a window for streetcar operators to take breaks, The News Tribune previously reported.

“To ameliorate that, we have also extended the operating hours from a 14-hour weekday span of service to a 17-hour weekday span of service,” Jackson said in a statement addressing 12-minute arrival times. “This change in service yields significantly more weekday service on the T Line.”

Jackson added that future projects would support achieving train service every 10 minutes.

By 2039, Sound Transit is seeking to grow the T Line to 8.4 miles with the addition of six more stations that would extend from the St. Joseph Station to Tacoma Community College, according to agency plans. The latest forecast showed a $20 million “project affordability gap,” which Sound Transit was working to close. Jackson said this month there was no updates to report except that the board had begun “another reassessment process” due to “continuing financial headwinds.”

Scott said the extension completed two years ago provided learning lessons on being mindful of the negative impact that construction has on businesses and the need to proactively keep businesses informed. Stadium District business owners said the extension’s project work was financially devastating, emptying streets and deeply disrupting their operations.

Asked about the next two years, Scott said the T Line could help the city identify gaps in the transit system and expansion opportunities. Walker said it will be necessary to continue to raise awareness about the line so people understand their options.

“It’s not a commuter rail like light rail is in Seattle, King County right now,” Walker said. “But it really is that connector to up and down the hill that, I think, it took a little bit for people to get to riding it or using it in that way.”

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