Sound Transit light-rail ridership soars in November 2016

In November 2016, average weekday ridership on Sound Transit's Link light-rail system nearly doubled compared with ridership in the same month in 2015.

The system logged 66,237 average weekday boardings for the month versus 34,003 in the November 2015, marking a 94.8 percent jump.

Total boardings surged 91 percent to 1,701,600.

The increases came after Sound Transit opened new Link stations in March and September.

"Link's impressive ridership gains are largely a result of the service extensions to the University of Washington and Angle Lake," agency officials said in a monthly ridership report.

Meanwhile, average weekday ridership for the Sounder commuter-rail system slipped 0.8 percent in November 2016. However, overall Sounder ridership inched up 1.4 percent year over year to 329,605 boardings.