Ridership on Sound Transit’s Central Link light rail line keeps climbing, defying naysayers

[eridani]

http://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2014/10/ridership-on-sound-transits-central-link-light-rail-line-keeps-climbing-defying-naysayers.html

Back in mid-July, we at NPI joined with Sound Transit and many pro-transit activists to celebrate the five year anniversary of Central Link, which opened to the public on a sunny Saturday morning to thousands of eager riders.

More than sixty months later, Link is doing spectacularly well. Ridership just keeps going up, pleasantly exceeding even our own expectations. And it’s not a surprise why: People like the reliability and convenience of light rail.

From the Sound Transit August 2014 ridership report (PDF):

Central Link continued to see double-digit increases and set an all-time monthly record with total August 2014 boardings up almost 16% compared to August 2013.

Average weekday boardings stood at over 39,000 for the month of August, an amazing increase of 21%, while average Saturday boardings were largely unchanged due to startup testing in the DSTT [Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel] for University Link.

This is fantastic news. Total light rail boardings for the month of August surpassed 1.1 million. The Sound Transit systemwide total was nearly three million. Central Link is routinely performing above its targets, which is remarkable.

[Aristus]

1. It's simple common sense.

Give people a taste of not having to sit in traffic jams, not having to find (and pay for) parking, not getting their car doors dinged, and not having to pay for gas, and light rail use will increase.

When the fossil fuel advocates bleat "But...but..but cars mean, you know, freedom and stuff!" they forget that sitting in a traffic jam that turns your 25-minute commute in an hour commute isn't anyone's idea of 'freedom'.

[jmowreader]

2. And when those four additional planned lines are built, it'll be even better

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_Light_Rail