Mariners baseball home games on 16 days in May provided a
Seattle light rail patronage boost, but not as much as in April 

42% of the year has elapsed, and light rail ridership has reached only 32% of the 2010 forecast.

This updated page covers Seattle's light rail passenger counts from the first day of revenue service July 20, 2009 through May 31, 2010.  In April 2010 this train attracted an estimated 554,874 riders, and in May the count was up by 10% to 610,874, all the more impressive considering that April had 22 non-holiday weekdays and May had only 20. The daily average for weekdays, for Saturdays, and for Sundays and holidays all rose from April to May, as seen in the official Sound Transit tally sheet.

Our analysis puts the baseball bump at about 37,000 extra light rail riders during 10 games in April, vs about 20,000 over 16 home games in May.  The Mariners suffered an 8 game home losing streak in early May, which likely reduced game attendance and use of Stadium Station later in that month.

The Mariners baseball team opened their home season on April 12, and light rail serves the Safeco Field game venue directly at Stadium Station. The Mariners, Sound Transit, and Port of Seattle are all promoting light rail use for attending baseball games. And in fact, results provided by Sound Transit for the first two months of the season show that Mariners baseball in April and May has been an overall good thing for Central Link light rail ridership. The photo shows an opening day scene on a Link rail car before the game.

During April, the average ridership on 10 game days was 20,944, while on 20 days when no game was played, the average was 17,272, a difference of 3,672 per day. This differential dropped a bit in May when 16 home games took ridership to an average of 20,314 on game days, while non-game days saw an average of 19,057 riders. The difference made by baseball was thus only 1,257 per day over 16 game days in May. 

But folks have found other reasons to ride light rail. Game day average ridership in May was down from April, but non-game-day ridership was up over 10% from one month to the next. 

Let's look just at weekdays, since light rail's most important ridership is on weekdays. Over both April and May, the weekdays when baseball was played brought Seattle light rail an additional 1,551 customers per day compared to non-baseball weekdays. At the same time, the growth from March to April-May combined on non-baseball weekdays came in at 2,615 per day, so baseball is not the whole story in light rail ridership growth.

However, the importance of baseball is indicated on the first chart below, where baseball game days are noted with green dots, either squares or triangles. Triangles indicate that a Sounders soccer game occurred on the same day at Qwest field next to Safeco Field. The observation that the vast majority of the green dots are above the red moving average line is an indication that the general effect of game days is to pull up the average.  In April and May, inspection of the line graph shows the seven-day moving average jumping upward for home stands, and then drops downward until the next home stand begins.

The highest daily light rail boardings to date since the start of revenue service were 25,889 on Friday April 16, the opening of a three-game weekend series that evening with the Detroit Tigers. The Mariners won 11 to 3 so the fans rode home happy!  Daily light rail boardings next crossed the 25,000 mark on Friday May 7 on a game day where the Mariners lost in a shutout to the Los Angeles Angels, an unfortunate continuation of the losing streak that helps explain why the 25,000 mark was not broken again in May.

The ridership trend for light rail is upward in 2010. Every month of the first five this year experienced more light rail ridership than the month before. But with 42% of the year elapsed, the ridership through May is 2,554,976, which is only 32% of the 2010 total annual forecast of 8.1 million.  Lets hope the Mariners start winning a lot of games, because Sound Transit light rail could use a surge to meet its 2010 forecast.

All train rides were free on the opening weekend July 18-19, and the ridership estimate counted by hand for these first two days of light rail was 92,397, with a machine count of 66,792. These two free days -- with boarding levels similar to the 45,000 per day estimated for 2020 even if further line extensions are not completed by then -- are not included on the charts below.  Fares are now $1.75 to $2.50, depending on distance traveled.

The overall impression from the daily ridership graph above is great variation from day to day, but with an overall positive growth trend since late November 2009. The lows on the chart above are generally Sundays and holidays, when fewer trains are running. Focusing only on weekdays raises the daily average.

On September 19, 2009, Metro bus routes were revised to drop off more customers at light rail stations, and ridership showed an uptick in the days following. October, 2009 average daily weekday boardings were 16,192, a new monthly high. Ridership for some reason then trended downward until December 19, when the long-awaited Airport extension opened, and then an upward trend manifested at the end of the year. Ridership flattened in January at a weekday average of 15,965.

Ridership picked up in February 2010, reflecting the long-planned discontinuance of the Metro route 194 airport express bus on February 6. The 15-day moving average line (red) on the weekday chart below reflects an increase of about 1,000 per day in February, and another 1,000 in March, with a continuing upward trend at month end and on into April as baseball season opened. A reasonable assumption is that much of the gain comes from the market of customers who formerly took the route 194 bus, plus as noted above, baseball game attendance starting on April 12.  In May, the moving average is seemingly oscillating around a mean just below 20,000 per day, including weekends.

Back on July 30, 2009, in a burst of enthusiasm, Sound Transit forecast 21,000 per day on Link light rail by year end. That number was reached twice in 2009, on August 5 (21,229) and October 1 (21,216). The best day in 2009 after the Airport extension opened was 19,972 on December 28. This high from the Christmas holiday period was beat four times in March, and a new high for revenue service was established on March 26 with a boarding count of 21,446. In April, the number of passengers broke above 20,000 on ten separate days, half of which were not baseball game days. As of May 2010, Seattle light rail ridership appears to have permanently crossed north of the 21,000 daily weekday ridership level.