Getting around Stanwood with Community Transit

An image of downtown businesses on a street in Stanwood, WA

Community Transit is here to get you where you want to go. We are proud to be a part of the Stanwood community — we live here, ride here, and drive here. Wherever you need to go in Stanwood, feel good about how you get there.

About Stanwood

Stanwood is 50 miles north of Seattle, at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River near Camano Island. As of the 2010 census, its population is 6,231. Public transportation in Stanwood is provided by Community Transit and Island Transit, the transit authorities of Snohomish and Island counties, respectively. Some of the options for people traveling in Stanwood include three bus routes served Community Transit buses, DART paratransit service, and Vanpool.

Stanwood is also served by a north–south railroad owned by BNSF Railway, which operates freight and passenger rail service to the city. Amtrak's Cascades provides daily passenger rail service at Stanwood station in downtown Stanwood, continuing south to Seattle and north to Vancouver, British Columbia.

Popular Destinations

Community Transit ridership increased 19% in 2022

Mar 10, 2023, 13:00 by Laurel McJannet

Bus full of passengers on a bus

Community Transit has released its end-of-the-year ridership numbers for 2022 and the data shows a positive trend in total system boardings. 

The transit agency reported a total of 5.8M boardings in 2022, a significant increase over 4.9M boardings in 2021. Fixed-route bus service experienced a 19% increase. Breaking it down further, average weekday boardings increased by 20%, average Saturday boardings increased 14%, and average Sunday boardings increased 15% .


Swift Bus Rapid Transit
One of the significant contributing factors to the increase in boardings was Swift Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), which accounted for almost 36% of total fixed-route boardings. The Swift Blue and Green lines together showed an average increase of 14% on weekdays, 11% on Saturdays, and 10% on Sundays. In comparison to the previous year, Swift BRT service had an increase of 240k total boardings.


DART Paratransit
The DART paratransit service performed well in 2022, with a 24% increase in total boardings. DART ridership was up 23% in average weekday boardings, 22% on Saturdays, and 34% on Sundays. 


Vanpool 
Vanpool total boardings went up 22% in ’22, almost 51k more boardings than the previous year. As of now there is 252 Vanpool vehicles on the road versus 219 at the end of 2021.


Zip
Zip Alderwood Shuttle started service in October 2022 and ridership numbers were not included in this report.


Many factors have contributed to the increase in transit ridership, including the loosening of COVID-19 policies and attitudes, which allowed people to return to office work and other activities. The introduction of the free youth transit pass in September 2022 also had a positive impact on the boardings.