Aside from the SE Seattle Metro restructure, the two major service additions in September 2016 were the opening of Angle Lake Station and the addition of the first mid-day Sounder roundtrip. Nearly 4 months after their launch, we wanted to check in on ridership stats for the Angle Lake and Sounder portions.

Sound Transit tells STB that Angle Lake is drawing a weekday average of 2,578 boardings, a Saturday average of 2,174, and a Sunday average of 1,411. Based on August numbers for Link ridership by station, this would place Angle Lake 9th among Link’s 16 stations stations for weekday ridership, slightly higher than Beacon Hill and slightly lower than Tukwila Int’l Blvd.

Angle Lake is naturally dependent on the park & ride commuter market, with little residential/commercial development or bus transfer synergy to induce all day ridership. Sound Transit says that December weekday parking usage ranged from 86-98%. With more than two times the boardings compared to the 1,160 parking spaces, a surprisingly high number of riders seem to be transferring from buses, carpooling, biking, or commuting to Angle Lake for jobs at places like Alaska Airlines.

Sounder

Though Sounder introduced nominal ‘mid-day service’ in September, ridership on the trip pair has been highly asymmetric, with the 10:18am northbound trip (115 boardings per day) having only one-third the ridership of the 2:32pm southbound trip (356 boardings). Given the early schedule of inbound trains from Lakewood and South Tacoma, using Sounder in both directions wasn’t terribly practical before the 2:32pm train was introduced. Now those taking inbound trains in the 4am and 5am hours have a way home by train before 5:30pm. Remember too that the new train uses a smaller 2-car trainset, meaning the afternoon train is packed with 178 riders per car. There is clearly demand for a broader peak period for Sounder.

We’ve requested ridership info on the SE Seattle restructure as well, and will post that when available.