Friday Roundtable: the world is riding Seattle transit
Fans at Pioneer Square Station head to the Egypt-Belgium World Cup game at Seattle Stadium on June 15, 2026 (Sound Transit).Borrowing a phrase from Kirk Hovenkotter (Executive Director of Transportation Choices Coalition), today's Roundtable is about tourist use of Seattle's mass transit system.
On Monday, Seattle held its first FIFA Men's World Cup match at Seattle Stadium" (Lumen Field). Sound Transit, King County Metro, Community Transit, and Pierce Transit each boosted transit service to get tourists and match attendees in, out, and around Seattle as smoothly as possible with the massive influx of international football fans. Sound Transit was the first to announce almost record-setting ridership, estimating that June 15, 2026, was the third-highest ridership day in Link light rail history with 210,000 combined boardings on the Link 1 and 2 Lines, representing an over 37% boost from Link's quickly-growing rider count.
Sound Transit was not the only agency to experience a ridership spike on Monday. Jeff Switzer at King County Metro told Seattle Transit Blog that Metro counted a similar boost in rides. On Monday, Metro buses counted 300,561 boardings, a 34% increase over Metro's daily average of 224,600 boardings.
Sound Transit, King County Metro, and many other regional agencies boosted service in preparation for World Cup tourism. These include special services such as the Match Day Shuttle, which counted 3,452 boardings on Monday. We hope to see continued use of the new Match Day shuttle," Switzer said, which was heavily used after matches as people took advantage of free rides into the downtown and connecting to fan zones and celebrations."
Switzer shared Monday's boarding counts for other Metro-operated services:
- King County Water Taxi: 4,232 boardings
- West Seattle Route: 3,464 boardings
- Vashon Island Route: 768 boardings
- DART bus service: 3,527 boardings
- Waterfront Shuttle: 1,302 boardings
- Metro Flex: 1,279 boardings
- Access paratransit: 2,967 boardings
- Seattle Streetcar: 5,894 boardings
- First Hill Line: 4,570 boardings
- South Lake Union Line: 1,324 boardings
Many are expecting the confluence of events today (Juneteeth celebrations, USA vs. Australia, Mariners vs. Red Sox, and other World Cup events) to result in an even bigger boost in transit ridership. We shall see!
PS: in 2010, Seattle was part of USA's bids to host the 2018 or 2022 World Cup tournaments. In an early STB post, Frank Chiachiere noted those bids, which assumed the use of Husky Stadium and Qwest Field (now Lumen Field), neglected to recognize future light rail connections expected to open in time for the tournament. The USA eventually joined with Mexico and Canada to form the successful bid to host the 2026 World Cup across North America. Despite the difficulties faced by our region's transit agencies in the meantime, I think it's worth reflecting on how much better our transit system has become, and I'm glad to see the world is enjoying the result.
This is an Open Thread.