Seattle has a lot of variety in its public transportation network. There are trains, streetcars, a monorail, ferries, trolleybuses, and just plain old regular buses. But even those have some interesting features! Today, we are hanging around downtown Seattle, looking at through-running buses, creative solutions to downtown congestion, and of course, double-deck buses.
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Chapters
0:00 Introduction
1:14 Seattle’s Bus System: Explained
3:05 Through Running
4:43 Downtown Skip-stop service
7:16 Double-Deck Community Transit Bus
9:03 Double-Deck Sound Transit Bus
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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!
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!
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.
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 😊
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.
Love the graphics in this one!
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
Do a video about the ferries in Seattle
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
Those double-decker buses are just awesome!!! Thanks for this informative and interesting video!!!
Why don’t they combine the through running lines to one line per line pair (1+14 = 1)?
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
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.
my damn brain just stopped trying to keep up with all these routes and colors 😂
Double deck buses are awesome.
Put those legs away!
Another video unsupervised by Lyndsey???
Brilliant video sir!
What's interesting is a guy riding an electric unicycle at 4:36.
✌🏾
Come up to Vancouver, Thom; we have trolleybuses, double-deckers, and many other cool transit options!
Like riding in the front seat of a Budd short dome car.
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.
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.
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.
Hey Thom, which U.S. bus systems would you say are the most user-friendly to visitors? Thanks!
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
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?
Ok Thom, seen enough of your videos. Time to ride along for real.
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.
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.
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.
GO transit uses double decker buses as does Ottawa-Carlton transit.
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.
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.