Sound Transit rail ridership rose sharply after the agency opened a new cross-lake connection.
Seattle's regional light rail line recorded an unprecedented 155,000 daily boardings, the highest recorded anywhere in the United States, according to an article in Streamline.
The rise in trips follows the opening of a new cross-lake rail line, the world's first to use a floating rail bridge, and represents a 25% increase in ridership. "The new figures have catapulted Seattle past historic transit powerhouses, firmly unseating established systems in Los Angeles, Boston, and San Diego."
The article adds, "Despite the overwhelming success of the new routes, transit officials face significant operational hurdles. The integration of the north-south 1 Line with the new east-west 2 Line has created highly complex track-sharing scenarios through the dense downtown Seattle transit tunnel. Maintaining precise scheduling tolerances is absolutely critical to preventing system-wide cascading delays."
Read the full story: Seattle Light Rail Ridership Surges to Break National Transit Records
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