Pre pandemic. Seattle has more riders than Los Angeles? That’s…not right? I recall needing to rent a car to get nearly anywhere around Seattle, like if I wanted to get from home in Capitol Hill to Golden Gardens, that’s nearly an hour to go 8mi with multiple transfers. The issue with Seattle is it’s a small city with a giant body of the water in the middle of it, with not many bus lanes or hard rail.

Conversely, you can get from downtown LA to Santa Monica in the same amount of time, which is nearly twice the distance, direct. This was not to cherry pick a route either, just a popular dense neighborhood to somewhere scenic.