Sound Transit logged more than 47 million rides in 2017

In 2017, Sound Transit logged 47,031,781 rides on its rail, bus and paratransit routes, marking a 10 percent increase over the previous year.

On the Central Link light-rail line, ridership surged 22 percent to more than 23 million riders. Ridership on the Tacoma Link light-rail line grew 3.6 percent to 983,315 passengers. The agency's Sounder commuter-rail system logged 4,312,113 riders, up 2.9 percent compared with ridership in 2016.

"As more people chose the Pacific Northwest as a place to live and work last year, more commuters rode public transit," said Sound Transit Chair Dave Somers in a press release. "Link light rail remained a top choice for getting to and from work, sporting events and other destinations—which means the hard work of expanding our regional rail network remains more important than ever."

Meanwhile, average weekday ridership across all of Sound Transit's transit modes climbed 9.4 percent compared to weekday ridership in 2016, with light-rail average weekday ridership growing 8.3 percent.

In 2016, Sound Transit's Link light-rail ridership grew more than 65 percent over the previous year following the opening of new stations.