King County Metro of Seattle

[Nabinut]

King County Metro is the major transit provider for all of Seattle, Washington and several suburban areas of King County. With 223 routes spread across the service area, the majority under the hub and spoke pattern with many routes ending or beginning in Downtown Seattle and the Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel where it shares service with Sound Transit.

Seattle is also one of a handful of cities that employ ride-free zones in Downtown to promote usage and encourage shopping and other events. The method involves passenger who board inside the zone and who exit after the zone to pay while exiting. The reverse is true for passengers traveling into Downtown Seattle from outlying areas.

 

KC Metro operates the largest all bus fleet in the country with a mixture of Diesel, Trackless Trolley & Diesel Electric units. The majority of the fleet are articulated buses from New Flyer in almost every conceivable version except LFRs. Gillig Phantoms made up most of the 40 foot vehicles with a batch of New Flyer D40LFs and soon to be in service Orion VII Hybrids balancing out the fleet. Also in the fleet are 159 Trackless Trolleys, 100 of which were built on Gillig Phantom shells with the last 59 salvaged Breda dual mode artics changed over to all electric. These buses operate on Monday-Friday only along thirteen lines with weekend service replaced by Diesel buses.

 

Gillig Phantom #3213, one of 395 purchased by King County Metro between 1996 & 1999 sits in Downtown Seattle on Route 70, one of several that serve the University District:

 

Route 36 during the week is covered by Trackless Trolleys. On this day, Diesel #3424 is operating along 3rd Avenue:

 

King County Metro has several hundred New Flyer Diesel Electric Artics. Many of them operate in the Downtown Transit Tunnel. #6832 is collecting passengers at the Pioneer Square Station:

 

One of the major transit hubs in Seattle outside of Downtown is the Northgate Transit Center, which serves the nearby Northgate Mall. Here is #3289 with J.C Penney’s in the shadow:

 

KC Metro operates several different sizes of buses including 30 footers. Here is #1151, one of 95 Gillig Phantoms on Route 345:

 

 

 

 

 

The next biggest series are a batch of 35 footers, only 15 in size and slowly being retired. Here is #3198 sans driver outside Northgate:

 

In 2003, King County Metro purchased their first low floor buses from New Flyer. The 3600 series are used on several routes including Route 28, which has #3677 assigned to it this day:

 

Between 1998 & 2000, KC Metro took delivery of 274 New Flyer D60HF Galaxy artics in to replace artics from MAN. Here is #2344 on the heavy Route 124:

 

In 2004, KC Metro became the largest operator of Diesel Electric artics in the United States with the purchased of 235 units from New Flyer of which 213 were retained. Here is #2605 operating on Route 358, which usually sees older D60HFs on weekdays:

 

Videos:

 

Gillig Phantom #3517: Cummins ISM/Allison B400R:

 

 

New Flyer DE60LF #2764: Caterpillar C9/Allison EP50 Hybrid Drive

 

 

New Flyer D40LF #3622: Cummins ISL/Voith D864.3

 

 

New Flyer D60HF “Galaxy”: Cummins ISM/Allison B500R

 

 

Music Video of Seattle & other transit systems:

 

[East New York]

Nice! That's the first DE60LF with a Cat that i have ever heard or heard of!!

[Nabinut]

Caterpillar was certified first when the Hybrids were being built then the later batches all have Cummins ISLs though I didn't get a chance to ride any of them