King County Metro

There are also other systems named Metro Transit

Metro Transit, or Metro for short, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, a division of the King County Department of Transportation. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was founded in 1972, and began operations on January 1, 1973. It can trace its roots to Seattle Transit, founded in 1939, and Overlake Transit Service, founded in 1927.

As of 2004, it operated 1,363 buses on 235 routes. Its annual ridership in 2003 was 100 million, making it the ninth largest bus operator in the nation.

Operations

Metro was established in 1972 as a combination of Seattle Transit and suburban authorities. The agency was independent until 1994, when a popular vote merged it with King County government. Until 1996, the region consistently voted not to fund rapid-transit projects, rejecting proposed light-rail systems in 1968 and 1972. Today, Metro operates bus service in partnership with Sound Transit, which was established by a 1996 vote to provide regional bus and rail service.

Metro operates one of the largest bus-only fleets in the country (discounting its short waterfront streetcar, which is temporarily out of service). Bus-only operation results in some interesting operating characteristics of the Metro fleet, most notably a high concentration of articulated buses—over a third of the total. Metro's use of articulated coaches dates back to 1978, when it was the first large agency in the country to adopt the technology. The other two-thirds are made up of mostly Gillig Phantom coaches: 395 40-foot (3200-3594), 15 35-foot (3185-3199; the latter two, 3198 and 3199, are used for special/disabled services), and 95 30-foot (1100-1194) buses. The 100 low-floor 40 foots (3600-3699) were built by New Flyer and are used mostly on routes within the Seattle city limits.

Metro also maintains a large fleet of electric trolley buses (ETBs). The ETBs prove useful both as zero-emission vehicles, and as vehicles well adapted to Seattle's hilly terrain. Until 2005, this was the largest ETB fleet in the country, including 236 dual-mode Breda "tunnel buses." In 2002, Metro replaced its 100 AMG trolleys with new Gillig Phantom shells. The drive train of the AMG coaches was retained with new electronics, saving approximately $200,000 per coach. Metro is now rebuilding 29 of the now retired Breda dual-mode coaches, converting them to electric-only operation and refurbishing them to replace aging MAN articulated ETBs. The rebuild includes new Kiepe current collection equipment, new interior upholstery, a completely new driver's compartment, and new ADA-compliant signage.

The agency pioneered technologies in widespread use today. In 1979, the AMG trolleys were ordered with some of the first wheelchair lifts in the nation, promising a completely new level of independence for disabled residents. Early lifts were severely flawed, but by the mid 1980s the lifts were generally reliable and were ordered on all new buses. With the retirement of the 1400-series buses in 1999, the entire fleet became wheelchair-accessible—again, the first fleet its size to do so. Strangely, the agency was reluctant to adopt low-floor buses, not buying any until 2003.

Collaborating with several local jurisdictions, Metro was also an early experimenter with transit signal priority (TSP), a system to extend green lights to allow buses to get through. The system can boost average speeds as much as 10%, and is in use on several of the city's busiest corridors, including Aurora Avenue N., Rainier Avenue S., and 15th Avenue N.W.

Metro operates the largest fleet of articulated hybrid buses in the country, the fleet of 214 New Flyer DE60LFs it purchased to replace the Bredas. (Sound Transit bought an additional 21 similar buses.) Metro's hybrids were purchased to run in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, where they will operate together with light rail vehicles beginning in 2009. In the tunnel, the hybrid buses use electric traction to 15 mph; after 15 mph, traction is a combination of electric and diesel, operating in a quieter, low-emission mode.

Fleet

Model	Motor	Length	Purchased	Retired	Qty.*	Fleet Numbers
New Flyer DE60LF	Cat C9/GM Hybrid	60'	2005	in service	214	2599-2812
New Flyer D60LF	Caterpillar C9	60'	2005	in service	30	2870-2899
New Flyer D40LF	Cummins ISL 280	40'	2003	in service	100	3600-3699
New Flyer D60	Cummins M11/330	60'	1998-2000	in service	274	2300-2573
Ford/Champion Van	Ford 7.3L	25'	2003	in service	35	1200-1234
Gillig Phantom ETB	GE/Alstom (reman)	40'	2001	in service	100	4100-4199
Gillig Phantom	Cummins ISC 250	30'	2000	in service	95	1100-1194
Gillig Phantom	Cummins M11/280	35'	1996	in service	15	3185-3199
Gillig Phantom	Cummins M11/280	40'	1995-1998	in service	395	3200-3594
Breda (conv. to ETB)	AEG/Westinghouse	60'	2004-2006	in service	59	4200-4258
Breda ADPB 350	DDC 6V92TA/330	60'	1990	2005	236	5000-5235
MAN SG-310T	Siemens	60'	1987	in service	46	4000-4045
MAN Americana	MAN	40'	1986	2004	157	3100-3146; 3150-3159
MAN SG-310	MAN	60'	1983	2001	202	2000-2201
MAN SG-220	MAN	60'	1977	1999	151	1400-1550
Flyer D900	Cummins VTB903	40'	1979	1997	224	1600-1823
Flyer D900	Cummins VTB903	35'	1979	1997	35	1850-1884
AMG 10240T	GE	40'	1979	2002	109	900-1009 (no 911)
AMG 10240B8	DDC 8V71	40'	1976	1998	323	1100-1312; 1340-1349
GMC T8H-5305	DDC 8V71	40'	1968	1987	70	700-769
Flxible		40'	1963	1985	100	500-599
Brill Trolley		40'	1940	1963

* at time of fleet purchase

Routes and service

Metro combines service patterns typical of city and suburban bus networks. The city network, descended in large part from the Seattle Transit system of converted streetcar routes, is arranged in a hub-and-spoke pattern centered on downtown Seattle, with lesser amounts of crosstown service. Routes in the city network are numbered from 1 to 79, with special late-night "Owl" routes in the 80s and the waterfront streetcar and its replacement coach numbered 99. Because of the scattershot evolution of the system, there is no easily discernible pattern to the route numbers, although there are clusters in certain neighborhoods: for example, the 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, and 79 all run through the University District.

The in-city routes with the highest ridership are the 7, traveling from downtown Seattle through the International District and Rainier Valley; the 36, traveling from downtown Seattle through the International District to Beacon Hill; the 43 and 49 (the latter of which was formerly the northern portion of route 7), traveling through Capitol Hill to the University District; the 44, a crosstown route connecting the University District and Ballard; the 48, a very long crosstown route connecting most parts of east and north Seattle to the Central District and Rainier Beach, and the 3 and 4, connecting downtown to Queen Anne, First Hill, the Central District, and Madrona. However, because of the bus-only nature of the system, there are many other heavily used routes.

The suburban system is more numerically organized. Roughly speaking, areas south of the city from Burien and Des Moines through Renton and Maple Valley are served by routes numbered from 101 to 197. Areas east of the city from Renton to Bothell are served by routes numbered from 200 to 291. Areas north of the city from Bothell to Shoreline are served by routes numbered from 301 to 373. Numbers in the 400s are reserved for Community Transit (Snohomish County) commuter routes serving Seattle; numbers in the 500s are used by Sound Transit's Regional Express system, save for Pierce Transit's routes 500 (Federal Way-Tacoma) and 501 (Federal Way-Milton-Tacoma).

Major all-day Metro routes in the suburbs include the 120, connecting Seattle and Burien; the 174 and 194, connecting Seattle, Sea-Tac Airport, and Federal Way; the 150, connecting Seattle, Southcenter, Kent, and Auburn; the 101 and 106, connecting Seattle and Renton; the 255, connecting Seattle and Kirkland; the 230 and 253, connecting Bellevue, Crossroads, and Redmond; the 271, connecting Issaquah, Bellevue, and the University District; the 347 and 348, connecting Northgate and North City; and the 358, operating up Aurora Avenue N. to Shoreline.

Ride Free Zone

File:RideFreeZone.gif

Ride Free Zone in downtown Seattle

The ride free zone is a portion of downtown Seattle where there is no charge to ride the bus. The ride free zone operates between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The ride free area extends from the north at Battery St. to S. Jackson St. on the south, and east at 6th Avenue to the waterfront on the west. The waterfront streetcar (Metro Route 99) and Metro routes 116, 118 and 119 are not included in the Ride Free area.

Although bicycles can usually be loaded or unloaded at any bus zone at any time, they are only allowed to be loaded or unloaded at a route's first and last ride free stop. This is a safety policy to reduce the potential of too many cyclists being between buses in heavy downtown traffic.

Major facilities

Bases

Metro operates out of seven bases spread throughout its 2,134-square-mile operating area: Atlantic, Ryerson, Central, East, Bellevue, South, and North. Atlantic, Central, and Ryerson Bases are located close together near Safeco Field south of downtown Seattle. East and Bellevue bases are located in north Bellevue. South Base is in Tukwila; the innovative North Base, built mostly underground in 1989, is in Shoreline.

Atlantic Base is unique in that it mostly serves ETBs.

Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel

A major Metro operations facility is the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel, or DSTT. The DSTT, a 1.3-mile-long, five-station tunnel through the center of downtown Seattle, was completed in 1990 at a cost of $444 million. Planned from the outset to be convertible to light rail operation, the tunnel was outfitted with rails and overhead trolley wire. A fleet of 235 dual-propulsion buses were produced by Breda of Italy, powered by electric traction in the tunnel, and diesel on city streets. Mode changes occurred at the north and south portals.

The tunnel suffered some significant problems in operation, as the Breda buses proved morbidly overweight and exceedingly unreliable. The original plan to have up to 600 dual-powered buses using the tunnel never materialized; the 235 Breda buses were the only buses to use the tunnel until Metro acquired its hybrid fleet in 2005.

Following the Sound Transit vote in 1996, planners discovered the original rails in the tunnel were not adequately insulated, requiring complete replacement for light rail. The tunnel is closed for up to 2 years as of September of 2005 to replace the rails, lower the track bed for modern ADA-compliant light rail cars, and complete a stub tunnel for a future LINK light rail extension to the north.

Projects

Significant projects include a regional smart card initiative, rehabilitiation of several transit bases, and the exploration of BRT in a north-south corridor north of downtown.

Introduced in April 2006 was Metro's proposed "Transit Now" initiative. The initiative would increase Metro's bus service by 20 percent over the next ten years through the addition of a one-tenth percent sales tax increase. The proposal focuses on establishing improving current service, adding service to the county's growing outlying regions, service partnerships with large employers, and the establishment of 4 "Bus Rapid Transit" corridors dubbed "Rapid Ride," as follows:

1. Aurora Avenue North. This line would run from King Street Station downtown to the Aurora Transit Center in Shoreline

2. West Seattle. The line would run from West Seattle over the West Seattle Bridge, the SODO Busway and into Dowtown through the Transit Tunnel, potentially reaching the University of Washington in the future.

3. Ballard. The line would also run from King Street Station to Ballard via 15th Ave. West and Elliot Ave. West.

4. Bellvue to Redmond.

5. Federal Way to Sea-Tac. This line would connect with Sound Transit Central Link light rail beginning in 2009.

All lines would use new, low-floor, branded buses to set them off from traditonal routes. Stops would be combined to increase speed and reliability and create "stations" more akin to what is found on rapid transit lines. Some form of off-bus fare collection would be considered.[1]

Information technology/intelligent transportation systems

Metro could be criticized for its lack of smart card fare collection and automated stop announcements. In 1998 the fleet was updated with RFID tags that reported to battery-powered RFID locators located at some stops. Metro is currently in the process of replacing the system as part of a system-wide radio update.

Metro does use Traffic Signal Priority along some major arterials, utilizing the bus RFID tags.

The extent of Metro's ITS available for customers has been limited to two projects: First, an early project by the University of Washington utilized the RFID data to provide real-time bus information. This is now hosted by Metro under the name Tracker. A recent project using Google Maps called Bus Monster provided the same service using the same data. This project was not officially endorsed by Metro.

A second pilot project provided bus information displays along a city arterial. Metro discontinued the project in 2005, citing the cost of maintenance and technical problems.