TransLink ridership figures show Surrey surge

Transit ridership in the Metro Vancouver area increased last year to levels not seen since the 2010 Olympics and nowhere more so than in regions south of the Fraser River, according to new figures released Wednesday.

There were nearly 385 million boardings throughout the transit system last year, which represents a 4.5-per-cent increase over 2015, according to TransLink's2016 Transit Performance Review.

A boarding is any time someone passes through a fare gate.

South of theFraserRiver, however, bus ridership grew by 10 per cent over the course of the year. The region includes themunicipalities of Surrey, Delta, the city and township of Langley and White Rock.

Much of that increase was due to the popularity of the 96 B-Line bus, which runs along 104th Avenue between Guildford and Newton exchanges.

"The 96 B-Line had the largest increase in annual boardings (up 570,000) of any route in the entire Metro Vancouver region in 2016," the report noted.

SkyTrain, SeaBus and West Coast Express

Ridership on theCanada Line increased slightlymore than the Expo and Millennium lines. This was likely due to increased development on the line and increased numbers of passengers coming into the airport, the report said. The station with the biggest increase in passenger volumes on that line was Marine Drive.

SeaBusand West Coast Express both saw drops in ridership in 2016.

The TransLinkreport blames last year'swet summer for the drop in Seabusriders. With buses switching to a one-zone fare across the board, however, it is less expensive for some passengers to take a conventional bus over a bridge rather than pay for an extra zone on the Seabus.

West Coast Express ridership also decreased slightly, likely due to the opening of the Evergreen SkyTrain extension in December.