Transportation in Seattle
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As with almost every other city in western North America, transportation in Seattle is dominated by automobiles, although Seattle is just old enough that the city's layout reflects the age when railways and streetcars dominated. These older modes of transportation made for a relatively well-defined downtown and strong neighborhoods at the end of several former streetcar lines, most of them now bus lines.
Because of the isthmus-like geography of the city (wedged between Lake Washington and Puget Sound), and the concentration of jobs in certain parts of Seattle, much of the movement in the Seattle metropolitan area is through Seattle itself. North-south transportation is highly dependent on Interstate 5, which connects most of the major cities on the Puget Sound with Portland, Oregon, and British Columbia provincial highway 99, which leads to Vancouver. Also heavily used is Washington State Route 99, which includes the Alaskan Way Viaduct in downtown Seattle. Because of seismic instability, there are plans to rebuild the viaduct, or relocate the traffic to surface streets and an expanded transit system.
Transportation to and from the east is via Washington State Route 520's Evergreen Point Floating Bridge and Interstate 90's Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge and Third Lake Washington Bridge, all over Lake Washington. Those bridges are the first, second, and fifth longest floating bridges in the world, respectively. Washington State Route 522 connects Seattle to its northeastern suburbs.
Unlike most North American cities, water transportation remains important. Washington State Ferries, the largest ferry system in the United States and the third largest in the world, operates a passenger-only ferry from Colman Dock in Downtown to Vashon Island, car ferries from Colman Dock to Bainbridge Island and to Bremerton, and a car ferry from West Seattle to Vashon Island to Southworth. Seattle was once home to the Kalakala, a streamlined art deco-style ferry that plied the waters from the 1930s to the 1960s. The ship has since fallen into disrepair.
Seattle contains most of Boeing Field, officially called King County International Airport, but most of the city's airline passengers use Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in the city of SeaTac. Seattle is also served by three Amtrak routes at King Street Station: the Cascades, the Coast Starlight, and the Empire Builder.
[edit] Public transit
Two bus systems serve Seattle. They are operated by King County's Metro Transit and the regional organization Sound Transit. Sound Transit is the regional transit organization, charged by voters to build a region system of light rail, express buses, and commuter rail. Sound Transit operates a number of regional bus routes connecting Seattle with its suburbs and commuter rail lines, called Sounder, linking Seattle with Tacoma and several cities to the south and Everett and other cities to the north. The light rail system, called Link Light Rail, includes the initial 15.7 mile Central Link from downtown Seattle to Sea-tac Airport, which will come online in 2009. A 3.15 mile extension of the line called University Link was approved for final design in November 2006, with construction expected to begin in 2009 and complete in 2006 at a cost of $1.5 billion. Future extensions of Seattle lines are planned to connect the University of Washington to Northgate, Seattle, Washington to the north; east across Lake Washington to Bellevue and Redmond; and south to Federal Way and possibly as far as Tacoma.
The Metro Bus Tunnel runs the length of downtown. It was formerly only used by buses, but is currently closed and is being renovated for simultaneous use both by buses and light rail. It will reopen in 2007.
Seattle also had an historic waterfront streetcar that ran parallel to Puget Sound, but the streetcar's maintenance base was demolished to make room for Seattle Art Museum's new Olympic Sculpture Park, so the streetcar is currently closed while a new base is built. After the streetcar reopens, it might be extended east up Jackson St. Beginning in 2007, a South Lake Union streetcar will run from Westlake Center (a major transportation hub in Downtown Seattle) to the restaurants, shops, offices, and condos in the South Lake Union neighborhood.
The Seattle Center Monorail, constructed for the Century 21 Exposition, connects Downtown and Seattle Center.
Metro Transit offers a trip planner on its web site that provides information for public transit in Seattle and surrounding areas (King, Pierce, and Snohomish counties), including Sound Transit's Regional Express bus routes, Sounder commuter rail, Washington State Ferries, and the Seattle Center Monorail. Riders enter their intended origin and destination, along with optional time, date, and other information, and the trip planner displays itineraries showing the stops, depature and arrival times, and times to get from the origin to the destination.
Over 15,000 Seattleites are members of the car sharing program Flexcar. While not all members are frequent users, as of September 2004 the use of these shared cars has been substantial enough to justify the purchase of over 150 cars and other light vehicles for the program, with an additional vehicle purchased approximately every ten days.
In addition, there are extensive multi-use car-free regional pathways linking the city and county to the surrounding areas. For example, one could ride a bicycle from Ballard via the Burke-Gilman Trail, to Redmond via the Sammamish River Trail, then to Issaquah via Snohomish River/East Lake Sammamish Trail, a distance of roughly 40 miles.
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