Guided by a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) statement on Monday night, King County Metro will no longer require masks on transit. However, Public Health – Seattle & King County recommends that people wear masks in indoor public transportation settings at this time.
We thank our riders for your high mask usage throughout the mask mandate. Between 85% and 90% of Metro customers masked up, protecting your fellow riders and our employees. We’re also proud to have distributed nearly 8 million masks. Metro will continue to provide free masks through dispensers onboard all our modes of transit at least through July 1.
Public Health recommends wearing a high-quality, well-fitting face mask in crowded indoor settings. In other indoor public settings, individuals also may choose to wear a mask out of consideration for those who may be at high risk or if they want to further reduce their own risk for any reason.
Additionally, many of Metro’s system-wide health enhancements will stay in place permanently. These include daily disinfecting, fleetwide air filter upgrades, and encouraging contactless payment.
Per Public Health guidance, the best way to protect yourself from coronavirus is to get vaccinated and, when eligible, receive a booster.
Please understand it will take time to update all of Metro’s announcements, signs, and other communications related to the federal mask mandate.
Relevant resources:
This is shameful. So many disabled, elderly, high risk and vulnerable people rely on King County Metro to go to and from work, home, family, and live their lives. If the general public does not mask up then the lives of those populations will suffer. I and many others will no longer feel safe on King County Transit because of this. Do better. Enforce the mask mandate. Don’t let one unqualified judge and a bunch of scared, uneducated folks bully you into being on the wrong side of history.
Why doesn’t Seattle, King County, or Emperor Inslee require mask? They have the authority. I guess they are unquallied, scared, uneducated, and on the wrong side of history too!
To transit riders who don’t want to mask up:
Not all of us have cars, and many destinations don’t have accessible or affordable parking. It’s transit or walking distance.
So I have to ask — why is your right to breathe droplets into the air more important than everyone’s right to get to work, school, medical appointments, etc., when the only change you would need to make is to bring your mask back out? It’s a face covering, not an iron mask. KF94s that fit (size does matter) are much more comfortable and light than that piece of cloth you’ve been wearing.
But, hey, if you can’t hack protecting others and yourself, and have the choice that others don’t, to stay off transit, please do so, for your sake and ours.
oh ok
Trll that to that to federal judge in Florida who ruled mask requirements are invalid!!!!!!
Thanks for the tons of mask trash you created that kept nobody safe and did great harm to the environment and wildlife. Serious science proved the entire time that masks were useless and even harmful. Thanks for nothing!
Is the light rail part of King County Metro?
Link is owned and funded by Sound Transit, although they pay King County Metro to operate it. So the train conductors are Metro employees.
Stop being a sheep BW.
Please don’t use public transit if your worried about those around you not wearing masks. Our rights don’t end where your feelings begin.
It isn’t people’s feelings you are hurting by spreading the virus. It is people’s health you are hurting. You don’t have an unlimited right to get other people sick.
General Washington ordered his troops to get vaccinated against smallpox. Does that mean he did not believe in freedom?
If it makes you FEEL safer get the “vaccination”, 16 boosters and wear a mask so your protected. Quit forcing your health choices on others.
1) Smallpox vaccine wasn’t even a thing during the Revolutionary War. The first study on it began in the late 1790s, one year before Wasahington died.
2) Smallpox kills 1 out of every 3 people who contract the virus. Covid killed 1 out of 14 when at its highest rate. Comparing the 2 is laughable.
3) You can wear a mask and take as many boosters as you feel are needed to make you feel safe.
Please, County Council, step in and impose a mask requirement on transit for the duration of the pandemic.
Please, County Council, step in and impose a mask mandate on BW and only BW.