Bus Photo of the Month: April 2021

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MAN ETB 4037MAN ETB 4037

Location: Pine Street at 3rd Avenue, Seattle, WA
Operator of Vehicle: King County Metro
Date of Photo: August 13, 2004

Yesterday, King County Metro announced that it launched the “Infinity Bus.”  Here is an excerpt from the agency’s blog post about its newest vehicle:

King County Metro, the region’s largest transit agency, launched a capstone mobility and engineering achievement in Seattle. The new “Infinity” articulated bus, a roughly 3-mile-long transit vehicle, forms a full loop encircling the completely-redesigned Downtown Seattle Third Avenue Transit Corridor.

 

The Infinity Bus provides service to destinations throughout downtown—as well as connections to other transit services—for employees, residents, and visitors. Third Avenue is Seattle’s most heavily-used transit corridor and moved more than 100,000 daily passengers in 2019.

 

The Infinity Bus embodies Metro’s commitment to sustainability and is part of the agency’s move to a 100% zero-emission fleet by 2040 or sooner. The new 15,840-foot vehicle is trolley-style, allowing it to pull current from overheard wires and be fully electric.

 

Responding to commuters wanting to travel at different times of day and not only during traditional rush hour periods, the Infinity Bus is designed to deliver highly-frequent—constant, actually—service. The bus offers arrivals and departures at all times, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

So if you haven’t figured it out yet, this was an April Fool’s Day joke, so you won’t be seeing any photos of the Infinity Bus on Oren’s Transit Page anytime soon.  So instead, I am offering a photo of a bus that actually ran in Seattle at one time, a MAN electric trolleybus that was retired in 2007.  I haven’t been to Seattle in over 12 years, so I am pretty confident in saying that none of the buses I photographed there on my prior visits are still in service.  I certainly hope to (and expect to) visit Seattle again someday, even if there won’t be an Infinity Bus to check out on my next visit.

For more photos of King County Metro buses, please click here.