3 Things I Like about Seattle Buses

you missed the joy of riding a double decker flying past freeway traffic in the HOV lanes!

I remember when I moved to Seattle in 2012 and thought the bus system was so unique here especially compared to where I came from where public transit was non existent. The busses in the city basically act like trains. They’re frequent, run late and can get you literally anywhere in the city. If you live in the city limits of Seattle you really don’t need a car. And the Double Deckers can take you to the burbs and cities like Everett & Tacoma. It’s like a clean coach bus in & out the city every day. The bus system here is unparalleled in the US!

3rd Ave being Bus Only during the day is also a huge part of the recipe.

Trains definitely are awesome, but buses deserved some attention. They provide a service where rail vehicles are not practical. Thanks for showing Seattle's variety.

When I was growing up in Seattle in the 1970s, the buses were free downtown. They called it the "Magic Carpet Zone" and you could board any bus for free downtown and not pay as long as you got off before leaving downtown. Fares were collected when you board going toward downtown and collected when you exit leaving downtown. That made the rear exit unusable heading away from downtown.

Double-decker buses are always a plus! So cool they have them as express routes for commuters! For me, I love that Megabus uses double-deckers for intercity routes! Trolleybuses are a great solution for bus electrification for several reasons. For hilly routes like in Seattle and San Francisco, trolleybuses are better than motorbuses as electric motors provide much higher static torque at start-up, an advantage for climbing steep hills. No battery means lower weight and lower cost, plus less resource waste! I'm amenable to BEV busses AS LONG as they are part of a greater trolleybus system, so that they can be deployed to areas where running wires isn't feasible and can connect back to the grid once they return to the wires. Trolleybuses are especially great where electricity is abundant, cheap, and renewable, such as hydroelectric. Systems in Seattle and Vancouver in Canada draw hydroelectric power from the Columbia River and other Pacific river systems! And compared to trams, they're cheaper, there's easier training as the potential operator pool for all buses is larger than trams, they're quieter, and not to mention easier traffic avoidance! Besides Seattle, Philly, and San Francisco, Dayton, Ohio also has trolleybuses! Dayton, OH has operated trolleybuses since 1933 (streetcars between 1888-1947), has 5 lines, and had a ridership of under 2 million in 2022! Impressive in a city of around 140K! The Dayton trolleybus system is the current manifestation of an electric transit service that has been operated continuously in Dayton since 1888...longer than in any other city in the US! If Dayton can do it, other cities have no excuse!

As a Torontonian, I can vouch for the fun of riding on those Alexander Dennis double decker buses! The panoramic front window on the upper deck is always a joy! The inter-regional transit operator GO Transit has a massive fleet of them so they’re very common here in Toronto!

I live south of Seattle in Olympia (about a 75 minute drive) and I go to Seattle often via Sound Transit Expreess buses, light rail or train. I learned so much from this video. You have a new fan. Thank You.

I've lived car-free in downtown Seattle for almost two years and am ashamed to admit I've never been on a double-decker yet. Really gotta make up an excuse to go to Everett... Also I didn't know about the color-coding on our skip-stop system, thanks for pointing that out.

I live in Seattle and ride all of the transit options every week. Still I learned a few things I did not know. Great video.

YAYYY YOU TALKED ABOUT THE DOUBLE DECKER BUSSES!!

Come up to Vancouver, Thom; we have trolleybuses, double-deckers, and many other cool transit options!

Rider Apps like Transit have made riding the Puget Sound Transit network so much better. Certainly better than sitting in a car stuck in stop and go traffic.

i love our train and transit niche community <3

Community Transit has the largest double decker fleet in the US with 97 coaches. Pierce Transit is ordering some to operate the southern commuter routes like the 594, King County Metro and CT are ordering more for the STRide S1 and S2 BRT routes (that will replace 535 and 560), and out in eastern Washington, Spokane Transit Agency is ordering a bunch for their commuter routes

Ive lived in Seattle for 10+ years and never figured out the livery scheme of KCM -- KIng County Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit are all excellent, with great drivers (no shade on Pierce County, I just don't go there ever.) Great video!!

The double-decker express buses are a godsend getting from Everett to Northgate Station, the current northernmost light rail station going into Seattle. I can imagine they’re just as useful riding them all the way down to too

The biggest difference between the 400-series CT-liveried buses and the 500-series ST buses is that the ST buses tend to run all day. The 400-series bus was gonna make you get off at the end of its run; you could've stayed on that 510 and ended up in Everett. I used them to advantage when I had a reverse commute - out to Bellevue in the morning and into Seattle at night... You could generally tell the Pierce-Transit-run ST buses by their chrome-plated rear wheels; the CT-run buses had plain wheels. What's really fun is going multi-modal; from 4th and Jackson you can either catch CT 417, OR cross the street to King Street Station and catch Sounder (dedicated elevator from the far side of Jackson, half a block south), and get off at Mukilteo Station and then catch the ferry to Whidbey Island... which has another bus system you'd like for a big reason: It's FREE. Sadly this only works during afternoon commute; outside these hours it's REALLY complicated: Light rail to Northgate, 512 or 513 bus to Lynnwood TC, and then 113 takes FOREVER to wind through the subdivisions down to the ferry dock... oh, and the Whidbey bus doesn't run on Sunday, so... sigh (Rail all the way to Lynnwood will be a Thing soon, but the 113... argh...)

The buses don't run through it anymore, but there is a mile plus long tunnel (or pair of tunnels) that runs underground beneath 3rd avenue downtown that used to be shared by both buses and light rail. The novelty of riding a bus and seeing a train on the road in front of you was interesting, and I always thought the underground stations were pretty spectacular.

Woah! I live in the Seattle area and had no idea about the colors for the skip stop system 😮