Seattlites would rather drive to Spokane and back than taking the damn Sounder train for commuting. (For its part, SDOT/Sound Transit should really make the N Line a two way all day service)
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2026
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There are 3 trains in the morning, a 6 hour gap with no service, then 10 more trains, with the last at 7:30, and no service on weekends. This is why.
That was the south sounder. The north is even worse. 6 trains per day, and that's being very generous counting the amtrak that goes the same route.
I assume seattleites are not interested in an inconsistent train that is likely to strand you on the rare occasions it is even plausible to use.
Every time I've needed to go to Seattle I checked the sounder schedule. Every time its been unusable.
In contrast, the light rail's 1 line has about 130 trains per day with the last train after midnight, and it operates weekends too. This is how you schedule a train properly.
@hildegarde @Rentlar @seattle The issue is that BNSF owns the tracks Sounder uses between Seattle & Tacoma & schedules freight trains on them. Amtrak has the same issue. If we had an additional set of tracks that were not BNSF, then we could have increased Sounder & Amtrak frequency.
https://seattletransitblog.com/2019/09/14/expanding-sounder-south/
You're absolutely correct hence my caveat about commuting and about Seattle and WSDOT's part in making few viable alternatives to driving on the I-5. This would be a perfect time to negotiate a temporary change with BNSF to a roughly hourly service, to offset closure impact and get people to try the train.
At this rate, the 1 Link will expand north 14 mi to Everett faster than the BNSF line can be upgraded to handle more passenger traffic.
Don't use I-5.
Pretty much lol