3 Things I Like about Seattle Buses 

you missed the joy of riding a double decker flying past freeway traffic in the HOV lanes!

I remember when I moved to Seattle in 2012 and thought the bus system was so unique here especially compared to where I came from where public transit was non existent. The busses in the city basically act like trains. They’re frequent, run late and can get you literally anywhere in the city. If you live in the city limits of Seattle you really don’t need a car. And the Double Deckers can take you to the burbs and cities like Everett & Tacoma. It’s like a clean coach bus in & out the city every day. The bus system here is unparalleled in the US!

3rd Ave being Bus Only during the day is also a huge part of the recipe.

Trains definitely are awesome, but buses deserved some attention. They provide a service where rail vehicles are not practical. Thanks for showing Seattle's variety.

I live south of Seattle in Olympia (about a 75 minute drive) and I go to Seattle often via Sound Transit Expreess buses, light rail or train. I learned so much from this video. You have a new fan. Thank You.

When I was growing up in Seattle in the 1970s, the buses were free downtown. They called it the "Magic Carpet Zone" and you could board any bus for free downtown and not pay as long as you got off before leaving downtown. Fares were collected when you board going toward downtown and collected when you exit leaving downtown. That made the rear exit unusable heading away from downtown.

As a Torontonian, I can vouch for the fun of riding on those Alexander Dennis double decker buses! The panoramic front window on the upper deck is always a joy! The inter-regional transit operator GO Transit has a massive fleet of them so they’re very common here in Toronto!

Double-decker buses are always a plus! So cool they have them as express routes for commuters! For me, I love that Megabus uses double-deckers for intercity routes! Trolleybuses are a great solution for bus electrification for several reasons. For hilly routes like in Seattle and San Francisco, trolleybuses are better than motorbuses as electric motors provide much higher static torque at start-up, an advantage for climbing steep hills. No battery means lower weight and lower cost, plus less resource waste! I'm amenable to BEV busses AS LONG as they are part of a greater trolleybus system, so that they can be deployed to areas where running wires isn't feasible and can connect back to the grid once they return to the wires. Trolleybuses are especially great where electricity is abundant, cheap, and renewable, such as hydroelectric. Systems in Seattle and Vancouver in Canada draw hydroelectric power from the Columbia River and other Pacific river systems! And compared to trams, they're cheaper, there's easier training as the potential operator pool for all buses is larger than trams, they're quieter, and not to mention easier traffic avoidance! Besides Seattle, Philly, and San Francisco, Dayton, Ohio also has trolleybuses! Dayton, OH has operated trolleybuses since 1933 (streetcars between 1888-1947), has 5 lines, and had a ridership of under 2 million in 2022! Impressive in a city of around 140K! The Dayton trolleybus system is the current manifestation of an electric transit service that has been operated continuously in Dayton since 1888...longer than in any other city in the US! If Dayton can do it, other cities have no excuse!

YAYYY YOU TALKED ABOUT THE DOUBLE DECKER BUSSES!!

I live in Seattle and ride all of the transit options every week. Still I learned a few things I did not know. Great video.

Come up to Vancouver, Thom; we have trolleybuses, double-deckers, and many other cool transit options!

I've lived car-free in downtown Seattle for almost two years and am ashamed to admit I've never been on a double-decker yet. Really gotta make up an excuse to go to Everett... Also I didn't know about the color-coding on our skip-stop system, thanks for pointing that out.

Rider Apps like Transit have made riding the Puget Sound Transit network so much better. Certainly better than sitting in a car stuck in stop and go traffic.

i love our train and transit niche community

Community Transit has the largest double decker fleet in the US with 97 coaches. Pierce Transit is ordering some to operate the southern commuter routes like the 594, King County Metro and CT are ordering more for the STRide S1 and S2 BRT routes (that will replace 535 and 560), and out in eastern Washington, Spokane Transit Agency is ordering a bunch for their commuter routes

Ive lived in Seattle for 10+ years and never figured out the livery scheme of KCM -- KIng County Metro, Sound Transit, and Community Transit are all excellent, with great drivers (no shade on Pierce County, I just don't go there ever.) Great video!!

The double-decker express buses are a godsend getting from Everett to Northgate Station, the current northernmost light rail station going into Seattle. I can imagine they’re just as useful riding them all the way down to too

The biggest difference between the 400-series CT-liveried buses and the 500-series ST buses is that the ST buses tend to run all day. The 400-series bus was gonna *make* you get off at the end of its run; you could've stayed on that 510 and ended up in Everett. I used them to advantage when I had a reverse commute - out to Bellevue in the morning and into Seattle at night... You could generally tell the Pierce-Transit-run ST buses by their chrome-plated rear wheels; the CT-run buses had plain wheels. What's really fun is going multi-modal; from 4th and Jackson you can either catch CT 417, OR cross the street to King Street Station and catch Sounder (dedicated elevator from the far side of Jackson, half a block south), and get off at Mukilteo Station and then catch the _ferry_ to Whidbey Island... which has another bus system you'd like for a big reason: It's FREE. Sadly this only works during afternoon commute; outside these hours it's REALLY complicated: Light rail to Northgate, 512 or 513 bus to Lynnwood TC, and then 113 takes FOREVER to wind through the subdivisions down to the ferry dock... oh, and the Whidbey bus doesn't run on Sunday, so... *sigh* (Rail all the way to Lynnwood will be a Thing soon, but the 113... argh...)

Next time you come to Seattle, assuming the Lynnwood Link extension hasn’t resulted in all of the ST/CT routes being truncated, make sure to take a southbound “Double Tall” trip across the Ship Canal bridge - probably one of the best bus views in North America!

I used to love riding the double decker busses from Seattle to Everett. It used to be a cozy 1 bus experience. Now the trip is half light rail and half bus. I miss the longer double decker experience.

The buses don't run through it anymore, but there is a mile plus long tunnel (or pair of tunnels) that runs underground beneath 3rd avenue downtown that used to be shared by both buses and light rail. The novelty of riding a bus and seeing a train on the road in front of you was interesting, and I always thought the underground stations were pretty spectacular.

It's pretty awesome seeing a double-decker with a bike rack!

Woah! I live in the Seattle area and had no idea about the colors for the skip stop system 😮

I’m gonna be honest, I only watched for the double decker bus part, as a British person i absolutely love double decker buses! Also I also dart for front seats upstairs 😂 you get the best view from there

Great 👍🏿 video, born and raised Seattleite and I love our public transportation. So much quicker and cheaper when you’re downtown.

I mean through running seems pretty normal but the fact they for some reason get a different route number just seemingly adds confusion. Like people who arent familiar with the services would look at it all and say "I cant go there quickly its not direct you need to change lines" and it just overcomplicates everything, rather than have one bus line going from one end of the city to another via downtown. I kinda get the downtown skip stop idea, but you probably also need good wayfinding at stops to help people transfer. Especially those who arent experts on the system. Without it I worry the thing falls apart from a user friendliness perspective.

Hope you enjoyed your visit to Seattle and liked our buses

Chicago CTA has continuing on service since the schedule is built as driver routes, however the route changes are at outer terminals and less likely to be noticed unless you happen to want to continue on.

If my memory serves me correctly, they have double deck buses in Victoria, BC.

Wow! You are a truly tireless content machine! Given how weary you were both seemingly becoming that far into your mega Amtrak loop, it is amazing how much you managed to pack in! Thanks for showing us these wonderful double deckers! Front seat up top is always a treat here in London, good to see it in the US too! Thanks again! \m/

5:00 nice use of graphics! 8:50 "Thank you." Yes, noticed this when I moved here: many passengers say that when getting off! And "Hello" when boarding. One more thing: bus stop posts have printed time schedules-!! It tells you when the bus arrives (and I hope they keep this in our digital age). Not only that, the bus usually DOES arrive at that time! What a concept!

Hey I was visiting Seattle at that time from Minneapolis/Saint Paul! I was really impressed with the express buses and I would love more of them here!

Awesome video , I am driver at UC Davis for Unitrans,hope you can go Davis to enjoy our most fascinating style bus service 😊,with a little bit like Japan’s train style operation method(local,semi express and express). Maybe you can ride the double decker bus that I drive with 😊

Double deck buses are awesome. Put those legs away! Another video unsupervised by Lyndsey??? Brilliant video sir!

@ 9:00 BRO THATS ME DRIVING

As a UK viewer, can I just comment that, when talking about double-decker buses, London is frequently mentioned. However double-deckers are ubiquitous over here... most towns and cities operate them, as well as single-deckers on less busy routes. Anyway enjoyable and informative video as always, so thanks!

I was bussing from Everett to Tukwila for college from 2012-2016. There weren't any double decker buses in the fleet when I started college, just the accordion style ones. I remember when I saw and got to ride the first double decker, I think sometime in 2014 or '15. As my last year of college was happening more double deckers were added to the fleet and riding them became more common.

Those double-decker buses are just awesome!!! Thanks for this informative and interesting video!!!

Informative and entertaining as usual. Thanks Thom!

What's interesting is a guy riding an electric unicycle at 4:36.

Love the graphics in this one!

Great video--very uplifting! That great front window upstairs could be called the Bus Fan Window or BFW for short, like the rail fan window (RFW) on some trains. Skip stop bus service downtown is actually fairly common in cities like Los Angeles and Chicago that have short blocks downtown. But the Seattle version seems to have some all-stop stops like elevated trains in New York (and formerly Chicago and Philadelphia). Interesting!

Great video

Thank you for making this!

Not sure if you had time, but there are dedicated island stations for ST Express on I-5, proper BRT kind. There are also dedicated express exits for them to get off to the park and ride for the rest of the stops. Though the service just runs on HOV lane.

I wish I could incorporate one of the double decker busses into my commute. They’re so cool. I also like the rapid ride for obvious reasons and they connect so seamlessly with the light rail.

I enjoyed the video👍👍

everything you upload is very interesting

GREAT VIDEO AND GREAT CITY

Riding the double decker buses is something I want to do too when I visit Seattle.

To answer your question from the intro: I am thinking about all the things you showed me in your previous videos. I have learned so much about public transport in the USA (and a bit about Japan as well) by watching your really well made videos! You somehow are able to make them entertaining and educational at the same time. The 40k subscribers are well earned (congrats btw!).

Nice!

my damn brain just stopped trying to keep up with all these routes and colors 😂

I got to ride the double deckers in Las Vegas back in 2010 going from the MGM Grand to downtown and I loved it. To my knowledge they just had the one service called the Deuce Bus. I could’ve taken the regular bus downtown but even after an Australian couple advised me that the regular bus was faster I still wanted to ride the Deuce bus both ways so I could enjoy the view that you described. I went at night but loved it anyway.

I live here and still learned a lot about the buses from this video. I knew about part 3 but not about parts 1 or 2

Ok Thom, seen enough of your videos. Time to ride along for real.

Thom: Welcome to a brand new Trains are Awesome video...(filmed 5-15-23) Me: Brand new?🤔 lol! Btw thanks for the post... Even though I'm an NYCT train operator, I was always a bus fan as a youngster and this video was fun to watch... L8er ☮️

KCM, TransLINK, DRTA (Dayton), SEPTA, and MUNI are few systems that still use trackless trolleys. While SoundTRANSIT TransLINK, and GO in Ontario are the few systems in North America that runs double Decked Buses outside of Europe's systems, TfL and BVG in Berlin.

GO transit uses double decker buses as does Ottawa-Carlton transit.

ah, through-running buses. My local transit agency (RIPTA in RI) have a few, honestly makes things convenient for cross-regional travel without needing to pray that I'll make a transfer.

When they first brought out the Sound Transit double decker buses they had a photo on their website about them. I was looking at it one day and my co-worker Ron who sat next to me was sitting in the first seat on top in the photo. I said Ron you're famous. He didn't know they had even taken the photo. SR

I was there in April 2024-Not having customer service for transit available by phone on weekends was NOT good. As a tourist access 7 days a week for transit help is crucial to me. I did like the transit rides.

Every once in a while they will run a Rapid Ride vehicle on a normal route and it freaks me out for some reason... especially when the stop isn't serviced by the RR. I'm always convinced it's a trick.

I use Skagit Transit (skat) to commute in county. They also have 2 bus routes out of county.

That front seat on the second floor, that's what trains are missing. KISSes, TwinDexxes, CityElephant... The Japanese have figured out how to do it in reverse with their Mizukaze and Sunrise Express, etc. This is the only application where I'm onboard with DMUs, just because the catenaries aren't intruding into the view.

I find it interesting how several of these special things you mention -- e.g. through-running and downtown skip-stop -- are not exclusive to the larger systems. DART First State in Delaware, where I live and am a system expert on, also has both of these. Unfortunately, we got rid of our trolleybus system some time back in the 40s.

Mega bus nerd here! Love seeing the ADL Enviro 500 buses built in the UK

I came across these one bus is on two lines affairs in London last year. Google Maps said that there was a line a to a certain stop and then line be to where I wanted to go to but it also said do not get off bus. We actually changed drivers in the middle.

Thank you for a video highlighting all the great things about public transit in Seattle! 6:37 the difference between green and yellow is frequency of each route, with yellow being every 10-15 minutes and green being every 30 or “commuter” routes that only operate during specific hours in each direction. 10:45 just wondering why you got off at that stop and didn’t stay for the last one that would have taken you back to Chinatown.

The only issue I have about the bus system is there are too many operators! The whole thing should just be either Sound Transit, or King County Metro. Either move light rail and commuter buses to KCM, or move all the buses to Sound Transit. More than likely should be the latter. That way there is a unified public transportation system for the entire Puget Sound area.

Glad you enjoyed the ride on the British built double decker buses ! They look good, but on both buses that you rode, ridership was poor, and could easily have been worked by single decker or articulated single deckers ! I guess they load well in the peak periods, and hope they are successful.

Alexander Dennis made the chassis in Dennis home town of Guildford in Surrey which is where I live. Unfortunately the factory here has closed and they are made in Scotland now. Great to see them though.

Do a video about the ferries in Seattle

Ah, nostalgia. I lived in Bellevue WA for 2 years. Thus, when I wanted to go to downtown Seattle, I was heavily relying on Sound Transit express buses such as line 554 or line 550, which are mostly made of bendy buses. Those line were super popular. Riding was not exactly a pleasant experience due to its crowdedness, but they were undeniably useful for me. Also, when I was in Seattle area, Sound Transit lines had almost zero double deckers. I wonder why Sound Transit decided to obtain them, and why it did put them in such unpopular route😂 PS. Coloring based on the characteristics of the lines is not just King County metro thing. Seoul does it too.

If you look at 3rd Avenue in Seattle digging below it you find out there was a bus tunnel underneath it now light rail if they want buses to run through it again order trolley buses this time with Pantograph just like the Siemens e Highway in Lübeck Frankfurt am Main Darmstadt. What's Seattle needs to have are battery electric buses that can actually charge from an overhead wire used by the trolleybus. If they cannot charge from The Wire go to a charging station. Impressive job and for Seattle Washington I really need to copy the German speaking World in Europe where you have the urban Transit operator covered by a Regional Tariff Association examples of the following Berlin Verkehrsverbund Berlin Brandenburg Frankfurt Rheinmain Verkehrsverbund Dresden Verkehrsverbund Oberelbe Bochum Hagen Duisburg Verkehrsverbund Rhein Ruhr VRR. VRR has a unique case is that RE19 operates on Hollandstrecke Duisburg/Bochum Utrecht. Zürich Züricher Verkehrsverbund ZVV Wien🇦🇹 Verkehrsverbund Ost Region Innsbruck Tiroler Verkehrsverbund

Oh good! You got to see the jail!

Oh, Thom, I forgot to ask one question. I was mentioning Seoul, do you think you will have a chance to visit Northeast Asian countries other than Japan? If you visit South Korea and Taiwan, I think you will be surprised by how different the transport systems are with Japan.

Wonder how CT/ST will use the double-deckers (they tried to refer to them as the Double Tall at first roll-out because... coffee) after Link light rail opens to Lynnwood at the end of this summer.

Ottawa is getting rid of its DD fleet after the current batch of Enviro500 MMCs run out their lifespan. They even retired their pre-MMC Enviro500s early.

Seattle busses, I think, barely serves 1/3 of its population. It is spotty and can’t survive without cars outside the core city areas

Y'all will be lucky to have tires after the Anunnaki arrive...

How do they keep the homeless off? Dd buses were suggested for SF and one was even brought in for test rides but it was clear from the start that the upper deck would be a rolling hotel and drug den.

Like riding in the front seat of a Budd short dome car.

Remember, kids: Buses is the plural of a single bus. Busses is a verb, meaning the act of transporting on a bus.

I was born in Seattle and always ride the bus when I go back. Community transit is a very strange company. If you wake up in the early morning hours you can see Community Transit buses. They recently sold 6 of their old double deck buses. I wanted to buy one but are still broke. Everett, WA has their own bus lines separate from the county like how they do it in LA and Orange County. Sound transit is much safer than King County Metro. Why? I took one of the most dangerous King County bus lines and it quadrupled my fear just because it goes down a street where it is very dangerous for single Asian guys. All trolleybuses are run by King County Metro. Double deck buses are run by Sound Transit and Community Transit. Downtown Seattle also used to have a fare free zone but somehow it proved pointless

My mom regularly rode the 560E before she retired. One of her complaints (that she acknowledged was petty) was the inconsistency of bus - style, coach, articulated, but NO double decker for her :-(

7:00 On the one way streets do the buses stop on both sides of the street? Would be kind of brilliant if they have at least 3 lanes. Wires probably complicate that

Hey Thom, which U.S. bus systems would you say are the most user-friendly to visitors? Thanks!

6:51 aren’t the colour coded tabs shown right under the RapidRide sign?

✌🏾

I wonder if they still for commute hours that you don't pay getting on the bus you pay to get off and when you're in the downtown area it's free to get on and free to get off to keep the traffic moving

Double Decker buses are reasonably uncommon throughout the world but not exceptionally so.Double Decker trams are something else and Hong Kong is about the only place I can think of where they operate proper public transport.

Hey Thom, this has nothing to do with the video, and I haven’t gotten to watch it yet, but I am writing this on the Borealis.

Why don't you do TTC in Toronto?

Why don’t they combine the through running lines to one line per line pair (1+14 = 1)?

You explained why through running downtown can be helpful but didn't explain what advantage there is in changing the route number. Why not just keep the same number for the whole route? Other than maximizing rider confusion what benefit does it have?

I would like to know which American city has the biggest trolleybus system?

I spent a few months living in Seattle, and after living in Chicago and Vancouver, I found the busses to be really confusing and complicated

0:40 "hey everyone welcome to a new trains are awesome video" should have been buses....

since busses are running through 3rd ave which is a kingdom of homeless, you will do anything to avoid busses. plus they are unreliable, can easily skip a time slot on the schedule. such a shame, it could actually be good public transit.