3-Car Midday Trains to Continue Indefinitely

Peter Lewis/Flickr

At the beginning of the summer, Sound Transit inverted the weekday Link schedule. Instead of two-car trains all day with a few three-car trains during rush hour, three-car trains would run all day and a few two-car trains would supplement peak capacity. This increased the proportion of three-car trains during rush hour from about one-third to two-thirds.

The initial story suggested this was a response to summer peak demand. Yesterday, ST's Kimberly Reason confirmed that the higher capacity is here to stay:

Sound Transit is maintaining 3-car train operations on Link to accommodate increasing ridership, especially with Husky and Seahawks seasons underway. More people are relying on light rail to travel to the airport, attend games, and commute to work in region experiencing robust economic and population growth.

There are no plans at this time to return the old arrangement.