Voters overwhelmingly approved the renewal of a transit tax for the Ann Arbor area in Tuesday's primary election.

The Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority's (AAATA) 0.7-mill tax renewal passed with 35,692 votes in favor of the proposal, and 7,085 against. That's 83 percent voting "yes," compared to 17 percent "no."

In July, the Ann Arbor City Council unanimously supported the renewal to maintain services, which will continue through 2024 in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township.

A local group supporting the transit tax received about $33,000 in contributions between May and July, including $20,000 from DTE Energy.

"The results reflect the feelings of our community. Our residents rely on having convenient transportation options. They want to be able to work late or on weekends and have busses available to get them home," said Matt Carpenter, CEO of ThrRide, in a news release.

"People want to be able to take our service on Sundays to get to the grocery store or across town to see their families on their day off. These services were all made possible by the original millage in 2014, and with this overwhelming support for the renewal it shows we're doing a good job and meeting community needs."

In 2014, 71 percent of voters in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Ypsilanti Township supported the tax to expand local transit services.

The AAATA saw ridership numbers of about 6.9 million trips in fiscal year 2017, with expanded service hours and new routes.

The 0.7-mill tax is in addition to a 2-mill tax Ann Arbor residents pay and a 1-mill tax Ypsilanti residents pay for AAATA service.

In 2014, the AAATA indicated it would use the funding to increase services by about 57,000 service hours for Ann Arbor, 8,500 additional service hours for Ypsilanti and an additional 9,400 service hours for Ypsilanti Township.