TransLink logs ridership growth through September

During the first nine months of 2017, the number of average weekday rides on TransLink's system increased 6.2 percent compared with ridership for the same period last year.

In September alone, ridership on the agency's Expo/Millennium SkyTrain line shot up 10.6 percent to 9.2 million boardings. SkyTrain's Canada Line logged 4 million boardings, marking a 4.6 percent increase.

In total, TransLink registered 36 million boardings for September, agency officials said in a press release. So far in 2017, there have been more than 306 million boardings across the agency's system.

TransLink officials attributed the ridership growth to a combination of increased transit service and the introduction of the Millennium Line's Evergreen extension, which opened in December 2016.

Meanwhile, September ridership on the West Coast Express commuter-rail line fell 10.4 percent to 190,000 boardings.