King County Metro, officially the King County Metro Transit Department and often shortened to Metro, is the public transit authority of King County, Washington, which includes the city of Seattle. It is the eighth-largest transit bus agency in the United States. In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . Metro employs 2,477 full-time and part-time operators and operates a fleet of 1,089 buses. The agency has 132 routes, including several dial-a-ride services, and a large vanpool system.
King County Metro formally began operations on January 1, 1973, but can trace its roots to the Seattle Transit System, founded in 1939, and Overlake Transit Service, a private operator founded in 1927 to serve the Eastside. Metro is also contracted to operate and maintain Sound Transit's 1 Line and 2 Line light rail services, eight Sound Transit Express bus routes, and two Seattle Streetcar lines owned by the City of Seattle. Metro's services include electric trolleybuses in Seattle, RapidRide enhanced buses on eight lines, commuter routes along the regional freeway system, dial-a-ride routes, paratransit services, and overnight “owl” bus routes.
History
A horse-drawn streetcar rail system debuted in Seattle in 1884 as the Seattle Street Railway, the first of many private companies to build railways in the city. In 1918, the Seattle city government acquired the remaining private lines, which had consolidated into the Seattle Street Railway, after they had faced financial trouble. A new transportation agency, the Seattle Transit System, was formed in 1939 and refinanced the remaining debt from the streetcars. The agency began replacing equipment with "trackless trolleys" (now known as trolleybuses) and motor buses. The final streetcar ran on April 13, 1941.
The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle was created by a local referendum on September 9, 1958, as a regional authority tasked with management of wastewater and water quality issues in King County. The authority was formed after civic leaders, including those in the Municipal League, noted that solutions to regional issues were complicated by local boundaries and a plethora of existing special districts. The state legislature approved the formation of a combined transportation, sewage, and planning authority in 1957, but the countywide referendum was rejected by a majority outside of Seattle. Metro, as the authority came to be called, was restricted to sewage management and given a smaller suburban jurisdiction ahead of the successful September referendum. By 1967, the agency had completed its $125 million sewage treatment system, which diverted 20 million gallons ( million liters) that had previously contaminated Lake Washington.
After two failed attempts to enable it to build a regional rapid transit system, the Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle was authorized to operate a regional bus system in 1972. The bus system was known as Metro Transit and began operations on January 1, 1973; other suggested names included King Area Rapid Transit (KART) and Seattle Metropolitan Area Rapid Transit (SMART). Its operations subsumed the Seattle Transit System, formerly under the purview of the City of Seattle and the Metropolitan Transit Corporation, a private company serving suburban cities in King County. Metropolitan had faced bankruptcy because of low ridership and planned to cancel several routes; the King County Council voted in October 1971 to temporarily fund six routes through a lease with Metropolitan to prevent their cancelation. A full transfer of Metropolitan's assets and routes was approved shortly before Metro Transit began operations; as part of the takeover, an agreement to operate commuter buses from Snohomish County was signed in December 1972. Metro Transit acquired 91 buses from Metropolitan and leased additional buses from the Southern California Rapid Transit District to meet expected demand; contracted service to rural areas as far as Skykomish and Black Diamond was provided by Evergreen Trailways.
Metro Transit introduced its new services in September 1973, including a ride-free area in downtown and express routes on freeways (known as "Flyer" routes), and a unified numbering scheme in 1977 that replaced named routes. The agency introduced its first paratransit service in 1979, which was followed by buses equipped with wheelchair lifts in 1980. To address bus congestion in Downtown Seattle and prepare for a regional rapid transit system, Metro Transit proposed the construction of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel in the early 1980s. Excavation of the tunnel began in 1987 and was completed on September 15, 1990, with five stations under 3rd Avenue and Pine Street. The project cost $455million to construct and used a fleet of 236 dual-mode diesel–electric buses manufactured in Italy by Breda. Buses on commuter routes would switch to electric trolleybus wires within the tunnel, which was also designed for future use by light rail trains.
The Municipality of Metropolitan Seattle was overseen by a federated board of elected officials, composed of elected officials from cities throughout the region. Its representation structure was ruled unconstitutional in 1990 on the grounds of "one person, one vote" following a similar ruling in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris. After gaining approval by popular vote in 1992, the municipality's roles and authorities were assumed by the government of King County in 1994. The transit operation was a stand-alone department within the county until January 1, 1996, when it became a division of the newly created King County Department of Transportation. The "daisy" logo used by Metro from their inception was replaced by the county government's "crown" emblem in 1997. In August 2018, the county council approved legislation to separate Metro from the Department of Transportation, creating the King County Metro Transit Department effective January 1, 2019.
After completion of the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel project in 1990, attention was drawn again to developing a regional rail system. This interest led to the formation of the Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (more commonly known as Sound Transit) which holds primary responsibility for planning and building high capacity transit in the counties of King, Pierce and Snohomish, in western Washington state. Metro was contracted to operate Sound Transit's major light rail line, now the 1 Line of the Link light rail system, and several routes on its Sound Transit Express network. Metro also operates two streetcar routes in Seattle under contract with the Seattle Department of Transportation. The joint use of trains and buses in the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel required a two-year closure to install new rails and lower the roadbed for level boarding. The dual-mode Breda buses were replaced by diesel-electric hybrid buses within the tunnel and retrofitted for use on the city's trolleybus network. Bus service in the tunnel ended on March 23, 2019, as part of the demolition of Convention Place station to prepare for an expansion of the Washington State Convention Center. The transit tunnel remained owned and operated by Metro until it was transferred to Sound Transit in 2022.
Ride Free Area
For almost 40 years, until 2012, most of downtown Seattle was designated as a zero-fare zone, an area in which all rides on Metro vehicles were free, known as the "Ride Free" Area. Intended to encourage transit usage, improve accessibility and encourage downtown shopping, the zone was created in September 1973 and was originally called the "Magic Carpet" zone. It was later renamed the Ride Free Area (RFA). The RFA extended from the north at Battery St. to S. Jackson St. on the south and east at 6th Avenue to the waterfront on the west. Until 1987, the zone was in effect 24 hours a day, but in October of that year Metro began requiring fare payment within the zone during night-time hours, between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m., to reduce fare-related conflicts that sometimes led to assaults on drivers;Sanger, S.L (August 21, 1987). "Metro puts the brakes on free rides at night". Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p. B1. in February 1994, the RFA's hours were reduced further, with fare payment required between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m.Foster, George (February 4, 1994). "Free downtown bus service to be cut in compliance with security plan". Seattle Post-Intelligencer, p. C1.
A King County Auditor's Office report released in September 2009 found that Metro "can neither fully explain nor provide backup documentation for the operating cost savings that offset the fare revenues in the calculation of the annual charges to the City of Seattle for the city's Ride Free Area" and that some assumptions in the methodology Metro used to calculate the amount of lost fares were "questionable" and have not been updated to reflect changes to the fare structure and fare collection methods.
On September 29, 2012, the Ride Free Area was eliminated. All riders boarding in downtown must now pay as they board.
Operations Routes
Metro has 139 bus routes that combine service patterns typical of both city and suburban bus networks, carrying over 280,000 daily passengers . The agency's ridership peaked at 425,000 daily passengers in October 2015. The city network was descended in large part from the Seattle Transit system of converted streetcar routes. Most service is operated in a hub-and-spoke pattern centered either on downtown Seattle or the University of Washington, with lesser amounts of crosstown service. The suburban network typically operates on major streets between the regions employment and population centers.
Routes in the city network are numbered from 1 to 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. Suburban routes follow a numbering system: 100–199 for South King County, 200–299 for the Eastside, 300–399 for North King County, and 900–999 for dial-a-ride and custom routes.
The in-city routes with the highest ridership are the RapidRide D Line from downtown to Crown Hill via Uptown/Seattle Center and Ballard; the 7, traveling from downtown through the International District to the Rainier Valley; the 40, traveling from downtown through South Lake Union, Fremont, and Ballard to Northgate; the RapidRide C Line from South Lake Union and downtown to West Seattle's Alaska Junction and Westwood Village; the 36, traveling from downtown through the International District to Beacon Hill; the 5 from downtown via the Woodland Park Zoo and Greenwood/Phinney Ridge to Shoreline Community College; the 44, a crosstown route connecting the University District and Ballard; the 8, a crosstown route connecting Uptown/Seattle Center and South Lake Union with Capitol Hill, the Central District and Mount Baker; and the 70, connecting downtown to South Lake Union, Eastlake, and the University District.
The Metro-operated Seattle Streetcar routes are numbered in the 90s, with the South Lake Union Streetcar numbered 98 and the former bus replacement for the Waterfront Streetcar numbered 99.
The suburban system is more numerically organized. Roughly speaking, areas in South King County (from Burien and Des Moines through Renton and Maple Valley) are served by routes numbered in the 100s, areas in East King County (from Renton to Bothell) are served by routes numbered in the 200s, areas in North King County (from Bothell to Shoreline) are served by routes numbered in the 300s. The Metro-operated Sound Transit Express routes are numbered in the 500s.