Everett Transit is a public transit system that serves the city of Everett, Washington, United States. It is a city department that operates 10 local bus routes and paratransit primarily within Everett, part of the Seattle metropolitan area. The rest of Snohomish County is served by Community Transit and Sound Transit. The agencies share a hub at Everett Station, the city's central rail and bus facility; Everett Transit also serves other hubs at Everett Community College and Everett Mall. The bus fleet is primarily battery electric buses and diesel–electric hybrids. Everett Transit carried 1.8million total passengers in 2025.
The first transit system in Everett was a private streetcar company that formed in 1893 and was later owned by the Puget Sound International Railway and Power Company. A bus system replaced the streetcars in stages between 1922 and 1932 and was sold to form Everett City Lines in 1939. The company was bought out by the city government in 1969 after a ballot measure to save the system and create Everett Transit. The city's voters rejected attempts to form a countywide transit system in the 1970s, which later became Community Transit and excluded Everett from its boundaries. The two agencies have discussed a merger or consolidation several times since the 1970s, with talks resuming in 2026 due to financial issues.
History
Predecessors and private operators
The first transit service in Everett was a streetcar system that was conceived for real estate development in 1892, prior to the city's incorporation. The Everett Land Company received several proposals for streetcar systems and awarded franchises to three entrepreneurs who sought to construct separate lines that would form a network. Delivery of the streetcars began in January 1893 and construction commenced in March, traveling south from a smelter on Monte Cristo Avenue towards Downtown Everett. The final rails were laid in late June, with the system reaching Lowell. The streetcar system opened on July 3, 1893, with an inaugural ride on Hewitt Avenue for the city's elected leaders and prominent citizens. An estimated 2,600 people rode Everett's streetcars the following day to celebrate the Independence Day holiday.
The Everett Land Company attempted to sell its utilities and transportation subsidiary, later named the Everett Railway & Light Company, to the city government in 1894 amid financial issues. A ballot measure to fund a municipal bond to purchase the utility and streetcar systems was defeated in a landslide by voters. The company continued to operate the streetcar system and expanded it over the following decade while replacing the existing tracks, railcars, and other infrastructure. A loop serving the Monte Cristo Hotel opened in May 1901 and was followed by double-tracked lines on Hewitt Avenue and Colby Avenue by 1903. The streetcars were originally painted in a red and yellow livery, but were changed to be solely yellow in 1904 to resist corrosion. The entire system, which spanned , was leased to the Puget Sound International Railway and Power Company, a subsidiary of Stone & Webster, in September 1907 for a term of 999 years. Stone & Webster also acquired the Seattle–Everett Interurban Railway, which opened in May 1910 and was integrated into the city's streetcar system, and later sold its water utility to the Everett city government.
The railway company announced in April 1922 that it would purchase a fleet of motor buses for use in newly developed neighborhoods rather than expand the streetcar system. They made their debut on December 1, 1922, replacing the Colby Avenue streetcar line at a frequency of 7.5minutes. Everett became one of the first major cities in the United States to retire most of its streetcars in favor of buses, which could use curbside stops and allowed for streets to be widened for automobiles. The Hewitt Avenue line ceased operation on April 5, 1923, and the remaining lines were amalgamated into a single route on Broadway that served Lowell and the Weyerhaeuser sawmills in Delta. The final streetcars on the Broadway line were removed on March 1, 1932, and replaced by new bus routes. The interurban was merged into the North Coast Lines alongside local buses and ceased service in February 1939 amid a decline in ridership attributed to competition from automobiles.
The Everett division of North Coast Lines was acquired by the Manning Transport Company on July 1, 1939, and renamed to Everett City Lines. Manning, which also operated public buses in Great Falls and Glasgow, Montana, outfitted the system with new buses and lowered the fare to 5cents. Manning sold Everett City Lines to National City Lines (NCL), a national conglomerate that operated buses in 36 cities, in April 1946. The company acquired two other operators in Snohomish County the following year and were granted franchises to run intercity buses to Mukilteo and other cities. By 1953, the Everett City Lines system had thirteen routes that covered Everett, Lowell, and unincorporated areas as far south as Silver Lake. NCL announced the sale of their Everett operations to Clyde Hammond, a former driver who also owned bus systems in Wenatchee and Walla Walla, in February 1961. Hammond's company, named the Everett Bus System, formally took over operations on March 9, 1961, and moved the headquarters to Lowell.
City takeover
After eight years of operations, Hammond approached the city government in early 1969 to seek a buyout of the Everett Bus System due to its ongoing financial and maintenance issues. The system had lost $10,000 the previous year and had a fleet of 16 buses that were all over 20 years old and required replacements, which were estimated to cost $250,000. The city government commissioned a study that recommended several options, including outright acquisition, contracting a new company, and a lease-back agreement with Hammond. The full acquisition of the existing buses and other assets was endorsed by the city council, who approved a ballot measure that would levy a household and business tax to fund a transit system. Everett voters approved the acquisition ballot measure on November 4, 1969, along with the 0.45percent household tax and 0.2percent business tax to fund the transit system. The city purchased all 16 buses in the Everett Bus System fleet for $36,398 in late November as a temporary measure until a grant to buy new buses was approved.
Everett Transit formally took over the bus system on December 1, 1969, and carried 5,576 total passengers on its first day. Within a few months, the route network was expanded to new areas of the city and later runs were added to extend service to midnight; a commuter bus for the Boeing plant ran until 1:45a.m. Four used buses were purchased from Oceanside, California, to allow several of the oldest Everett Bus System buses to be retired; the entire fleet was painted in bright shades of blue, green, and white. Everett Transit began to withdraw service from some neighborhoods in 1970 to reduce operating costs and were granted a portion of the motor vehicle excise tax collected by the state government the following year. By 1971, bus service had an average deficit of $2,500 each month. The city government was awarded $379,000 in federal grants in 1972 to purchase 18 buses to replace its entire transit fleet and install benches and shelters at bus stops. The new buses were put into service the following year, allowing the former Everett Bus System fleet to be retired. The agency also adopted a computerized dispatch system for buses, which would be able to switch between routes as needed.
A larger transit system that would serve Everett and adjacent cities in Snohomish County was studied in the early 1970s and formally proposed in a 1974 plan created by the Snohomish County Transit Authority (Sno-Tran). The agency proposed a countywide 0.3percent sales tax to fund a bus system that would absorb Everett Transit and comprise 37 routes with local and regional express service by 1980. The ballot measure was defeated by 52percent of voters on September 17, with heavy opposition from within Everett amid a small turnout. A second attempt in the November general election was also rejected after a poor performance among Everett voters; a majority of the city council had also endorsed a "no" vote. The proposal was supported in southwestern Snohomish County and returned in June 1976 as a public transportation benefit area that excluded the Everett city limits. It was approved and established a new transit agency, later named Community Transit, that would serve the rest of Snohomish County and have limited service to Everett for transfers.
The monthly household tax used to fund Everett Transit service was increased to its maximum rate of $1 by the city council in November 1975 to address a financial deficit that could not be covered by the general fund. The bus system had carried 750,000 passengers over the year and had a fare of 20cents, which covered about one-fifth of operating costs. The household tax was reduced to 75cents after the city received an operations grant from the federal government, but was raised to $1 in January 1978 to cover increased costs. In September 1978, voters in Everett approved a 0.3sales tax to fund the transit system as a replacement for the household and business tax. With their new funding source, Everett Transit began to restore service and increased bus frequency to every 30minutes on all routes during peak periods. They also began to accept fares transfers with Community Transit, but schedules for the two systems often did not allow for timed connections or created duplicated service. Everett Transit acquired three trolley replica buses in 1985 to use on a circulator route in Downtown Everett and at events. They failed to attract riders and were retired from service in 1989 due to their inability to be used on regular routes.
Downtown station and new service
The main transfer point in Downtown Everett for the Everett Transit system was moved to the Everpark parking garage at Hewitt Avenue and Hoyt Avenue in August 1981. It was expected to handle additional traffic from new bus routes while a permanent transit center was built at a different site. Community Transit also moved to the site in May 1984 after their lease at a nearby Greyhound bus terminal was canceled. The transfer point was renovated to add seating areas and a customer service center later that year. The two agencies agreed to work on plans for a permanent transit center in Everett that would also be served by a future commuter train. The train would be part of a regional transit plan authored in conjunction with Community Transit, King County Metro, and Pierce Transit. The state legislature had convened a joint policy committee on regional transit in 1990 that resulted in the creation of Sound Transit, a new regional agency that would build the rail system.