Sound Transit's light-rail ridership tops bus use

Sound Transit logged 67,893 average weekday boardings on its Link light-rail network in third-quarter 2016, marking a 71 percent increase compared with ridership the same period last year.

The figure surpassed the number of regional express bus riders for the first time in the agency's history, Sound Transit officials said in a press release.

Overall Link boardings increased 69.3 percent to 5,596,453 due in part to the opening of the University Link and Angle Lake stations earlier this year.

In addition, total ridership on the Sounder commuter-rail system rose 5.7 percent to 1,058,168, according to Sound Transit's third-quarter ridership report.

Meanwhile, Sound Transit's board yesterday awarded a contract to Hoffman Construction Co. to build the Roosevelt Station as part of the Northgate Link extension project.

The $152 million contract includes building civil, structural and architectural finishes for the underground station in the Roosevelt neighborhood in north Seattle. The company also will install elevators and escalators, mechanical and electrical equipment, and fire protection and emergency ventilation systems.

Construction on the Roosevelt Station is slated to begin in early 2017.

The $1.9 billion Northgate Link project will extend light rail 4.3 miles north from the University of Washington.