Month: January 2026

Yesterday, King County Metro launched its next generation of battery-electric buses (BEB) with a new livery and upgraded operator safety partitions. The new buses from Gillig will begin service on February 2, 2026 with periodic service on routes 105, 128, 161, 165, 184, and the F Line. The rollout of these buses marks a key milestone for Metro as it continues towards its goal of a zero emission fleet by 2035.

Metro’s new fleet will be based out of the brand new Tukwila Base. The Tukwila Base has capacity for 120 buses and sports 123 pantograph chargers. Each 40ft Gillig bus has an estimated range of 240–280 miles and can carry up to 68 passengers. Metro’s initial order with Gillig was for 89 battery-electric buses. If the agency is satisfied with the buses from this order, it will have the option to purchase up to 395 buses.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: New Battery Buses”

Earlier this week, Sound Transit shared an updated proposal for its ST Express restructure that will be implemented later this year. In response to the initial ST Express restructure proposal, Sound Transit received nearly 4,500 survey responses and in-person feedback at three open house events. Using that input, the agency has proposed minor adjustments for a few routes.

Sound Transit is accepting feedback on the new proposal between now and February 9, 2026. To provide feedback, attend one of the open house events listed below, or email servicechanges@soundtransit.org.

Information Sessions:

• January 30 from 12 to 1 pm
• February 3 from 6 to 7 pm

New Changes

Since the previous ST Express restructure proposal, only the routes below have been updated.

Continue reading “Sound Transit’s 2026 Service Plan (Phase 4)”

There Are No Safe Streets under Fascist Occupation (streets.mn)

Transportation:

• Sound Transit Board Abruptly Removes Key Committee Chair Ahead of Pivotal Year (The Urbanist)
• New Seattle bikeways coming to Space Needle ahead of World Cup (The Seattle Times, $). Free coverage from Seattle Bike Blog.
• World Cup Cities Set to Win $100 Million in Federal Transit Aid (Bloomberg CityLab)
• The Light Rail’s Cross Lake Connection Will Be an Aries (The Stranger)
• ‘Moving San Francisco’ exhibit highlights 122 years of SF Muni magic (Mission Local)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: Fascists in the Streets”

On December 6, 2025, Sound Transit’s Link extension to Federal Way (FWLE) welcomed its first passengers. This 1 Line extension added three new stations along eight miles of new track south of Angle Lake. The three new stations — Kent Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way Downtown — are located in suburban communities between SR-99 and I-5. Each station has connections to local bus service, pickup and drop-off areas, and lots of parking. In a Board of Directors Meeting on December 18, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine shared the three new stations had a combined 16,000 boardings on opening day.

Sound Transit’s ridership dashboard has been updated to include the December ridership data for the three new Link stations. While these initial data can share some insights, it is worth noting a few reasons why this data may not represent future ridership. First, the FWLE opened on December 6, so a week’s worth of ridership is not measured. Second, opening day brought many more riders than usual as people wanted to check out the new stations. Third, King County Metro’s South Link Connections restructure has not been implemented yet. Once these changes are implemented, more south King County residents will have a more direct bus route to a Link station. To reduce the impact of the first two anomalies, the analysis below is focused on the average weekday ridership, adjusted for the number of days the stations were open. With those caveats in mind, let’s take a look at the December ridership data.

Continue reading “Early Look at Federal Way Link Extension Ridership”

Praise for Link from a British perspective. (CityMoose)

Toronto’s Finch West light rail, which opened in December, is slower than Link’s surface segments. (Not Just Bikes)

This is the gray line in the top left of Toronto’s subway map. It’s not the Ontario Line we featured in the automate Ballard article two weeks ago, which is not in that map and is under construction.

This is an open thread.

This morning, Sound Transit announced the East Link Extension segment between South Bellevue station and International District/Chinatown station will open on March 28, 2026. When it opens, the 2 Line will be extended from South Bellevue station to Lynnwood City Center station, via Seattle. This extension will open two more Link stations: Mercer Island and Judkins Park.

Since the live wire test in September 2025, Sound Transit has run test trains and conducted operator training across the I-90 bridge. In preparation for the extension opening, Sound Transit will begin simulated service for the full 2 Line in February. During this final stage of testing, 2 Line trains will run the full length of the line. Passengers will be allowed on the trains between Downtown Redmond and South Bellevue, and between International District/Chinatown and Lynnwood City Center. Passengers will not be permitted on the trains between International District/Chinatown and South Bellevue.

Continue reading “Full East Link Extension Will Open March 28”

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the First Hill Line streetcar in Seattle. The 2.5 mile, 10 station line connects Pioneer Square, the International District, Yesler Terrace, First Hill and Capitol Hill. Since 2016, the line has carried over 10 million passengers.

The First Hill Line launched in 2016 after years of delay. Construction of the route was primarily funded by Sound Transit as a mitigation for dropping a proposed First Hill Link station. Sound Transit contributed to funding the route’s operations with $5 million annually until 2023. In 2024 and 2025, the Seattle Transit Measure provided funding to operate both streetcar lines.

Continue reading “Friday Roundtable: First Hill Streetcar Turns 10”

Reminder: From 10pm on Friday, Jan. 23, through Saturday, Jan. 24, the DSTT will be closed between Capitol Hill and SODO stations for signal upgrades. Shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes. Normal service will resume on Sunday, Jan 25, to serve the NFC Championship game. The Los Angeles Rams will play the Seahawks at Lumen Field at 3:30pm. Edit: the original closure was scheduled for the full weekend, but has been shortened to avoid impacting service for the major sports event.

Local Transit News:

• Sound Transit is accepting applications for volunteers from the Snohomish, North King, East King, or South King subareas for its Community Oversight Panel (Sound Transit)
• Metro studying transit improvements on Route 60 (Metro Matters)
• The First Hill Streetcar — weird, hard-working, and a little lonely — turns 10 (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Kitsap Transit riders can now sign up for automated rider alerts (Kitsap Transit News)
• WA bill would clarify line between e-bikes and e-motos, task state staff with developing enforcement guidelines (Seattle Bike Blog)
• E-Bike Boosters Ask: Is It All Downhill From Here? (Bloomberg CityLab)
• Pierce County’s Tight Budget Forces Tough Choices (The Urbanist) with potential impacts to transit service
• Seattle’s new Waterfront bike lanes topped a list of best new bike lanes opened nationwide last year (People For Bikes)
• Op-Ed: Light Rail Could Transform Bellevue’s Eastgate into Urban Oasis (The Urbanist)
• Uber Profits At Our Expense (The Overhead Wire)
• Seattle Is Building Light Rail Like It’s 1999 (Bloomberg CityLab)

Continue reading “Midweek Roundup: like it’s 1999”

On New Year’s Eve, SDOT posted a short video highlighting several projects it completed in 2025, distilling a longer summary shared in a blog post earlier in December. The blog post gives roughly equal space to each of its major initiatives, highlighting SDOT’s “Hot Bike Summer” of street improvements, various bridge maintenance projects, ongoing transit improvements, implementation of the Seattle Transportation Plan, community outreach efforts, and traffic incident response.

The 2.5-minute video spends little time showing transit improvement projects, but the opening highlight in SDOT’s video is the Beacon Ave S & 15th Ave S Safety Project. Only a few months after SDOT completed this project, a cyclist named Alley attempted to cross the freshly reworked Beacon Ave S at Stevens Street. Tragically, Alley was struck and killed by a driver who fled the scene.

Continue reading “SDOT’s Year in Review reveals room for improvement”

As ST3 construction cost has skyrocketed, Sound Transit is considering truncating the Ballard line at Smith Cove for now. Ballard riders would need to continue on the bus as very few people live around that station.

When Paris faced similar topography challenges to serve the end of line 8 by bus, they built an aerial gondola line instead. Building such line is far cheaper than extending the subway underground a recent short video explains while still providing faster transit times than the bus lines. The gondola line just opened in December and was built by Doppelmayr who constructed and operates many cable-operated systems here in the U.S. as well as around the world.

Continue reading “Learn from Paris: Gondola line over Ship Canal”