SEATTLE — Since Amazon ordered its employees to return to the office last month, ridership on King County Metro buses has seen a notable uptick, part of a broader trend that’s giving hope to downtown boosters and transit agencies alike.
Transit use has been trending upward over the last year, independently of the city’s largest employee. But May’s jump outpaced previous months. Metro was seeing around 15% year-over-year growth, with April around 18%. In May, when Amazon’s order took effect, there were 22% more riders this year than last year.
The difference between 18% and 22% might not sound like a lot, said Katie Chalmers, managing director of Service Development with Metro, but in reality that’s an additional 10,000 rides. “A fair portion of that is attributable to this return to the office,” said Chalmers.
Unsurprisingly, lines coming and going from near South Lake Union — including the 8, the 62 and the 70, as well as RapidRide routes from the north and south — saw significant increases. Ridership on the 62, which runs from Sand Point, past Green Lake and then along Dexter, added more than 700 rides from April to May, more than any other line in the county.
“We had some maybe expectations or ideas of what would happen,” said Chalmers. “But now we really do see some of that growth coming into play.”
Chalmers noted another trend that surprised even her: Metro added 68 Vanpools in May, the most in a single month since 2005. Amazon employees were always heavy users of the carpooling provided by the county — close to a third — so their return to the office is a boon for the program.
The jump in ridership, while not surprising, shows just how large Amazon looms over the city’s rebound. The company’s decision to close its offices in 2020 drove home the immensity of the pandemic in its early days, draining an entire neighborhood overnight. City leaders hope the opposite can be true as well, that the commerce giant’s return-to-office policy — which has drawn protests and walkouts by employees — might deliver an electroshock to the city’s downtown.
It’s not just transit that’s seen an uptick this spring. Data from the Downtown Seattle Association shows foot traffic downtown in May was up 10% from April and higher than any month since February 2020, with an even larger increase in and around Denny Triangle. Lunchtime near Amazon’s campus is bustling with food trucks and food lines snaking down the block.
Traffic, too, has become worse. Commute speeds are down 35%, according to traffic analytics firm INRIX, with pronounced slowing on both Interstate 90 and Highway 520 into downtown. The company is calling the slowdowns the “Amazon effect.”
Chalmers of Metro said bus operators are noticing the increased traffic. According to the agency’s performance tracker, the number of coaches arriving on time is lower this month than any period since 2019. The 62, which was on schedule 75% of the time in June 2020, has seen that number plummet to 66% so far this month.
Year-over-year transit use is up on Sound Transit and the state ferries as well, although neither has data for May yet. Link light rail is above its 2019 levels, with the large help of three new stations. Washington State Ferries saw 500,000 more trips in the first quarter of this year than the same quarter last year.
Employers are a major source of farebox revenue for Metro; before the pandemic, half of all fares came from ORCA cards provided by businesses and institutions like Amazon, Microsoft and the University of Washington. Some of those left during the pandemic, said Chalmers, but many are now returning.
Metro aims to cover 25% of its operating costs with fares. It had met or exceeded that number every year between 2009 and 2018, falling just short in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, the agency covered less than 10% of operating costs with fares.
Chalmers did not immediately know where that stands today.
The slow climb of transit use is encouraging to Chalmers, although it’s not originally how she thought it would look.
“Back in 2020, we might have thought, ‘oh, there’s going to be this big one wave of people coming back to the office,” she said. “And I think Amazon can create their own wave because of the number of people, but I think what we see is more like a tide, a kind of a steady increase of people coming back.”
