Orphan Road

As we noted in August, Sounder's first Seattle-to-Tacoma moning run will start Sept. 24th, along with more runs between Tacoma, Seattle, and Everett. Mike Lindblom reports:

Sounder is coming off a strong August, as lane closures on northbound Interstate 5 caused hundreds of new riders to try commuter rail; the south line exceeded 8,000 trips on the busiest days.

The Everett line has been chronically weaker, drawing around 800 weekday trips as of this spring.

With that in mind, I think it might be wise to revisit Erica Barnett's epic 2001 Seattle Weekly article on Sounder. While 8 trains a say might sound impressive, Barnett notes, "by [2001], nine trains were supposed to be running between Lakewood and Seattle, and six between Seattle and Everett, for 30 one-way runs a day." For point of reference, the Tac-to-Sea run had only 2500 or so rides back then, compared to over 8,000 today.

I'll have more on this later, when I can dig into ST's numbers and see how they're doing and how they've changed over time.