Five years! For a blast from the past, check out our opening day coverage from back in 2009. A lot has changed since then, some of it the world affecting Link, and some of it Link affecting the world. How has the opening of Seattle’s first all-day rapid transit line effected your life?

Yesterday, Sound Transit released some numbers that are icing on Link’s birthday cake. May saw a twenty-three percent increase in average weekday ridership, year-on-year, over 2013. Yes, you read that correctly: twenty-three percent! (Okay, it’s actually 22.7%, but close enough.) Now if you look at my charts you’ll see that May 2013 was a relatively low growth month, but still that is pretty amazing!

May’s Central Link Weekday/Saturday/Sunday average boardings were 33,650 / 27,910 / 17,412, growth of 22.7%, 17.1%, and 18.8% respectively over May 2013. Sounder’s weekday boardings were up 9.7% with ridership increasing on both lines. Total Tacoma Link weekday ridership declined 6.2%. Weekday ST Express ridership was up 5.9%. Total Sound Transit average weekday boardings were up 10.1%. The complete May Ridership Summary is here.

My charts are below the fold. Happy Birthday Link!