Sounder trains’ future in limbo as riders are slow to return

In April 2020, two months after the first reported case of the coronavirus in the U.S., the future of the Sounder commuter rail line looked bright. Ridership between Seattle and the South Sound would continue to grow in the decades to come and hit nearly 6 million annual riders by 2042, a Sound Transit report predicted.

Within three to five years, as population in the suburbs grew, demand for the train would outpace capacity and, to keep up, the agency likely would need to increase the number of cars and lengthen the platforms.

But in the months that followed, use of the train evaporated, as it did on all forms of public transportation. Nearly three years later, that ridership is barely returning, hovering at roughly a third of pre-pandemic ridership.

On public transportation that serves inner-urban travel, like Metro and Link light rail, there are some hints, even if faint at times, of a rebound. Link light rail, buoyed by three new stations, has exceeded its 2019 use and Metro has regained more than half of its ridership.

Sounder, meanwhile, was built around the traditional commute and its flexibility is hampered by BNSF Railway’s ownership of the rails. The last of its 13 daily trips headed south to Lakewood — with stops in Kent, Auburn, Sumner, Puyallup and Tacoma — leaves Seattle at 6:30 p.m. and none of the trains runs near the lunch hour. Heading north, the train runs less often and stops in Edmonds and Mukilteo on its way to Everett. Occasional service is available for special events, like Seahawks games, but otherwise stands aside for freight trains outside of business hours.

The result is a form of transportation caught up in the same existential questions dogging downtowns and purveyors of commercial real estate: Will the office workers ever return?

The Sound Transit board has yet to revisit its rosy predictions. The result is a limbo state for the heavy-rail line, for which voters approved nearly $1 billion in 2016, where the old world no longer exists but the new one hasn’t yet crystallized.

For some members of the board, it’s become clear there’s no going back to 2019.

“Now I feel like we’re at a point where I don’t think this is going to come back to where it was” said board member and Tacoma City Councilmember Kristina Walker. “It’s still a vital service, but we have to revisit our assumptions.”

Julie Timm, Sound Transit’s new CEO, said it’s too early to make decisions concerning Sounder's future. It may be less critical right now, but with population and density growth, she believes ridership will return, if more slowly than hoped. Meanwhile, transit agencies should make more investments to better connect their various modes, she recently argued in the pages of Passenger Transport, the newsletter for the American Public Transportation Association.

“I don't think we should lean away from use of the train,” she said in an interview. “I just think that we need to watch it very carefully.”

Josh Putnam rode Sounder trains from his South Sound home for 10 years. A marketing manager for Farmers Insurance, he’d bike from the town of Pacific, where he lives, to the Auburn station, ride north to Seattle, then pedal across the Interstate 90 bridge to his office. It was lengthy, but never felt like commuting — he’d get his exercise in and could work on the train.

Now much of Farmers' work is remote and Putnam rarely visits the office anymore. When he does, he drives. He misses some parts of his commute — you get to know people after that long on the same train — but from his standing desk at home he can watch the ducks on the nearby creek and he has more time to spend with his family.

“For now, I don’t see commuting for the rest of my career, honestly,” he said.

And so, Sounder has lost a rider, likely for good.

Putnam’s is a familiar story, especially in Seattle where office jobs are ubiquitous. As of October, just 36% of office workers had returned downtown, according to the Downtown Seattle Association — a far cry from their optimistic forecasts of 70% by the end of summer.

That tracks with Sounder ridership. October's roughly 6,000 daily boardings were just 32% of 2019’s. Use seemed to be improving in early 2022, but that trend line has stalled and even reversed since June — November boardings were down 13% from October. The northbound line, which has underperformed for years, was especially anemic, with just 5,000 rides in all of November.

Revenue from fares has disappeared as a result. In 2018 and 2019, the train covered over 30% of its operating cost via fares. In 2020, it was just 11%, well-below the agency’s target of 23%.

Sounder is not unique; commuter rail lines across the country face steep declines in use and revenue. Ridership on East Coast and Midwest lines range from 16% to 50% of pre-pandemic volumes, The Washington Post reported.

Matt Tucker, executive director and CEO of North County Transit District and board member of Commuter Rail Coalition, said agencies that leaned more heavily on fares have been hit hardest. As federal relief dollars drop away in the coming years, many could face a “financial cliff.”

“Everybody over the next five years, by and large, is going to need to true up their business model,” he said.

Tucker believes agencies ought to move past 2019 comparisons.

“I don't want to talk about 2019 ridership, because that’s no longer a relevant discussion,” he said. “You kind of are where you are at, so then your baseline is, ‘I have to go out, and I have to go get customers.’ Which means I got to better understand, what do customers want? What do they need?”

Rethinking trip schedules

On the City Council, Walker hears consistently from Tacoma residents that they’d use the train more if there were midday or evening trips. The current schedule is not useful for grabbing dinner in Seattle, or even staying late for drinks with co-workers.

“If we can get midday trips on Sounder, I think we’ll see some more regularity and it will accommodate those changes in work patterns,” she said.

Moving emphasis away from "peak" hours is a discussion unfolding across public transportation modes, and some rail lines have already made those adjustments. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and Virginia Railway Express both have added midday trips, for example.

The challenge for Sound Transit is that negotiating for more or different track times with BNSF can be sensitive and possibly expensive.

“BNSF has a very specific business model,” Timm said. “They need to use the tracks they own for their freight use.”

Timm added the agency would need to examine whether enough people would actually use more midday and weekend trips. Transit in the region is a “generational investment” and patience is warranted before making changes to how Sounder functions.

“Our forecasts need to be revisited because of COVID,” she said. “At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to continue to stay the course.”

Before the pandemic, Sound Transit discussed increasing the trains’ size from seven to 10 cars by 2028, while extending the length of stations along the corridor, funded through nearly $1 billion approved by voters as part of 2016's Sound Transit 3 package.

Whether extending the trains is the best use of those dollars is now an open question, especially as light rail extends north and south.

Regardless of the trends, the train is essential, said Walker. "For those who are riding it, the numbers don’t matter," she said. "The trip matters."