Sounder commuter rail, July 2026
Sounder carried 177,833 boardings in July 2026, down 5.3% on the year — against a peak of 442,159 in October 2019, which makes it 60% below its high-water mark.
Sounder is the purest commuter service in the region and therefore the most exposed to remote work. It runs peak-direction trains on weekday mornings and evenings between Everett, Seattle and Lakewood, and almost nothing else — so unlike the bus or Link, it has essentially no non-commute ridership to cushion it. If you want a single number for how much the downtown office day has come back, this is the least ambiguous one on this site.
Boardings, not journeys. Service levels have changed over the period — trips added and, on the north line, cancelled for mudslides — so a fall is not always a fall in demand. Not seasonally adjusted.
Source: Federal Transit Administration, National Transit Database monthly module, Sound Transit commuter rail unlinked passenger trips. Auto-generated each build.