Link light rail ridership up 78 percent in October

Per ST’s October 2016 Service Performance Report, Sound Transit ridership was by 722,000 in October 2016 compared to last year at this time. That comes out to a 23 percent gain overall.

Thanks to the opening of new stations and increased interest, Link ridership increased by 803,000, or 78.4 percent, compared to October 2015. There were 1,827,182 boardings in October, up from 1,024,121 a year ago. Weekday boarding were up 84.3 percent, Saturday boarding were up 90.4 percent, and Sunday boardings were up 48.6 percent.

Sound Transit

These numbers are all pretty consistent to what we saw earlier in the year, which is good news considering it means there hasn’t been much drop-off from the initial boost.

Link continues to drive total ridership growth of the Sound Transit system, making up for decreases in ST Express, Sounder, and Tacoma Link monthly ridership. Though some of that has to do with the fact that October 2016 had one less weekday than October 2015.

Just imagine how much more those numbers are going to grow once ST3 really gets up and running.

• October 2016 Service Performance Report [ST]
• October 2016 Link Ridership Report – Whole New World [STB]
• Sound Transit Link light rail boardings now up 83 percent from last year [CS]