Maps of World
Your Window to the World
Buy high quality maps online!
Home >  Cities > USA > Seattle > Seattle King County Metro

Seattle King County Metro


Featured Links






King County Metro is a Metro Transit or a public transport authority of King County, Washington. This authority belongs to the King County Department of Transportation.

Officially the transportation operations began on January 1, 1973. A survey of 2004 says that it presently operates approximately 1,363 buses on 235 routes. Its approximate annual ridership in the year 2003 was 100 million, thus making it the ninth largest bus operator in North America. The objective of King County Metro in Seattle is to provide the best possible public transport services to improve regional mobility in King County or Seattle. The Metro operates bus services in partnership with Sound Transit.

Metro operates about 1,300 vehicles of different kinds. Some of them include standard and articulated coaches, dual-powered buses, electric trolleys, hybrid diesel-electric buses and streetcars. The King County Metro services are available every 15 minutes up to 6:00 pm from Monday to Saturday. The services are not available after 5:30 p.m. on Sundays and other holidays. Usually the routes are clearly mentioned at header of the vehicle with the following abbreviations:
  • X = Frequent service available
  • DT = Downtown followed by city
  • ST = Sound Transit Regional Express service
  • E = Express service
  • SB = Southbound
  • NB = Northbound

Routes of King County Metro

The transit routes of this bus services are available from various locations of King County and descends down to the prime region of Downtown Seattle.Routes within the city network are numbered from 1 to 79 for the special late-night "Owl" bus routes of the 1980s. Presently these vehicles are replaced by the waterfront streetcar coach numbered 99. The buses, which are numbered 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, and 79 run through the University District. Some of the prominent routes encompassing the Seattle region are:
  • The Route 7 bus, traveling from downtown Seattle via International District and Rainier Valley is one of the busiest one.
  • The Route 36 traverses the opposite route - from downtown Seattle via International District to Beacon Hill.
  • Routes 43 and 49 covers Capitol Hill and heads towards the University District.
  • Route 44 is a crosstown route joining the University District and Ballard region.
  • Route 48 is a lengthy crosstown route connecting major locations of eastern and northern Seattle to the Rainier Beach and Central District.
  • Routes 3 and 4 link downtown Seattle to Queen Anne, Madrona, First Hill and the Central District. However, because of the bus-only nature of the system, there are many other heavily used routes.
  • Routes 174 and 194 connect Seattle to the Federal Way and Sea-Tac Airport.
Metro Transit offers free service between 6 am and 7 pm everyday in Downtown Seattle. The routes of 116, 118 and 119 are however not included in the Ride Free zone. All Metro buses have wheelchair lifts for the disabled passengers. The tickets of this transit system are moderate. However many passes are available to avail a cheaper ride in King County Metro.


More Interesting Links