Tag Archives: Seattle

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.

Bus Photo of the Month: November 2020

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Gillig Phantom 3212Gillig Phantom 3212

Location: 2nd Avenue at Broad Street, Seattle, WA
Operator of Vehicle: King County Metro
Date of Photo: August 3, 2007

On Friday, October 23, 2020, King County Metro retired the last of its diesel buses.  At the time that the first of its “1100 Series” Gillig Phantoms was delivered, there were 1,100 buses in the King County Metro fleet, all of which were diesel powered.  The one featured in this photograph was among them.  Fast forward to today, and with the retirement of the last Gillig Phantom, the KCM fleet is now made up entirely of diesel electric hybrids, electric trolleybuses, or electric buses such as Proterra Catalyst and BYD K9 models.  It is one of the largest bus fleets in the United States that does not have any vehicles to only be powered by diesel.  King County Metro is aiming to have the entire fleet consist of zero-emissions vehicles by 2040.

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

Oren’s Reading List: Trackless in Seattle

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Gillig Phantom 4193
I’ve been to Seattle twice, although it has been over 10 years since my last trip.  Lots has changed there in the intervening interval, but one thing that stood out to me on my previous trips is the ubiquitous presence of trolleybuses in the King County Metro fleet.  This dates back to a decision to retain some electric powered transit lines, albeit with rubber tires as opposed to steel rails, as the Emerald City’s streetcars were decommissioned.  And in recent years, Seattle in conjunction with KCM are implementing plans to develop the trolleybus network even further, as they have proven themselves to be a low-cost zero-emission component to the city’s transportation network over decades of service.

Can you name the five U.S. cities where trolleybuses operate?  (You already know one of them!)

To read more about Seattle’s trolleybus network, click here. 

Bus Photo of the Month: April 2016

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Gillig Phantom 4111

Gillig Phantom 4111

Location: 1st Avenue at Marion Street, Seattle, WA
Operator of Vehicle:  King County Metro
Date of Photo: August 3, 2007

King County Metro, the primary transit operator in the Seattle area, has two notable features wtihin its bus fleet. It operates more electric trolley buses, such as the one photographed here, than any other city in the United States other than San Francisco. The trolleybuses, in addition to emitting no emissions, are also able to handle Seattle’s many steep hills more easily than traditionally powered coaches. Seattle also has the second largest articulated bus fleet and one of the largest diesel-electric hybrid bus fleets in the United States.

For more photos of the King County Metro bus fleet, please click here.