Sound Transit’s latest light rail route in East King County is experiencing daily boardings as expected, according to The Center Square.
On April 27, the transportation between Bellevue and Redmond was made possible with the opening of Sound Transit’s 2 Line.
Last week, Goran Sparrman, the interim CEO of Sound Transit, shared encouraging news about the ridership statistics for Line 2. According to Sparrman, the numbers were positive.
A whopping 47,000 people boarded the 2 Line during its opening weekend.
In May, there were a total of 121,000 boardings, and on an average weekday, the ridership was just under 3,900. On Saturdays, the number of boardings increased to 4,300, according to Sound Transit records.
During a recent meeting of the Rider Experience and Operations Committee, Sparrman expressed that the current ridership numbers are in line with their predictions. However, once Line 2 is completed and connected to Line 1 over Lake Washington, they anticipate a significant increase in ridership – up to tenfold.
According to an email from Sound Transit to The Center Square, they initially estimated about 4,000 daily boardings on the 2 Line before its opening.
Sound Transit’s 1 Line, which travels from the SeaTac area to Seattle’s Northgate neighborhood, experiences nearly 80,000 daily weekday passengers – significantly higher than the 3,900 daily boardings on the mentioned line.
After almost a decade of construction, Sound Transit’s latest light rail line in Eastside King County finally opened in April. Although, at present, only a section of the line is operational, enabling travel between the cities of Bellevue and Redmond.
It is expected that the complete Link 2 Line will be operational by next year.
In 2008, voters gave their approval for the East Link Extension project, which has a whopping $3.7 billion budget. Since 2017, the project has been under construction, with the use of approximately $2.2 billion in local funding through Sound Transit 2 Bonds. This funding has been made possible by the voter-approved measure.
