(Editor’s note, 4/3/20: This blog post is now out-of-date and Metro has made additional service reductions. Please go to kingcounty.gov/ReducedSchedule for the latest information.)
To better support the health of passengers and drivers and to promote social distancing, Metro is restoring some weekday bus trips on specific routes based on ridership.
Starting on the afternoon of Friday, March 27 and being fully implemented on Monday, March 30, Metro is restoring some weekday trips on routes 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 36, 43, 44, 49, 70, and 180, and on the RapidRide C, D, and E lines. All trips will be restored on the RapidRide A Line. On Route 13, the restoration includes the 5:14 a.m. northbound and 5:56 a.m. southbound trips.
Since launching a reduced weekday schedule on March 23, Metro has been monitoring passenger counts to see how ridership continues to evolve. Preliminary data was analyzed to see which routes exceeded our social distance capacity of 12 passengers on 40-foot coaches and 18 passengers on 60-foot coaches.
While ridership is down more than 70% systemwide as of March 25, some routes serving downtown have not seen as large of reductions. In response, Metro is adding back some individual trips on specific routes to help riders distance themselves from one another.
We continue to operate a reduced weekday schedule in response to low ridership and to ensure a resilient transit network. Our customer service office and our online tools are available for identifying trips that are operating.
Under the reduced weekday schedule that began on March 23, a few bus routes have been canceled completely and others remain unaffected. Most routes have some reduced service. Service on Saturdays and Sundays follows normal weekend schedules.
Routes continuing to be canceled, reduced or unaffected:
- Please visit the Reduced Schedule page
To identify whether a specific trip is operating, the following tools are available to customers:
- Call 206-553-3000 weekdays between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.
- Ask @kcmetrobus on Twitter weekdays between 6 a.m. and 8 p.m.
- Text your stop ID to 62550 to find the immediate next departure time at your stop with Text for Departures
- Use the “Next Departure” feature in Metro’s Trip Planner website or app