Autonomous vehicle (AV) technology is maturing from what I reported two years ago. While Waymo, Zoox (Amazon), and Tesla compete to replace taxis in the U.S., China (Baidu, Pony.ai, WeRide) is already a bit further along. The rollout has shown that AV technology requires expensive sensors but proved itself unless there is a major disruption.

What about if you install such technology in a bus? Many transit providers in Germany and elsewhere in Europe have partnered with startups such as Holon or Navya or more traditional electric bus manufacturers such as Karsan to test on-demand and fixed-line autonomous bus services. This often happens in partnership with the AV software platform provided by Beep. WeRide is partnering with Yutong for global rollout. These vehicles are usually smaller than traditional buses to serve routes with less ridership. As the buses do not require a driver, they may allow Metro to provide fixed services in low ridership areas where King County currently operates their on-demand Flex service.

The Metro Flex service currently uses traditional minivans with drivers. They have partnered with Via to operate this service. Via already has partnerships with vendors such as Navya and May Mobility. At some point Metro may either offer fixed routes using AV buses in such areas and/or partner with one of these AV providers to operate a driverless on-demand service. Jacksonville Transportation Authority is already testing such AV based service. Holon is already building a factory in Florida to supply them to Jacksonville and the U.S. market in general.

A long-awaited ORCA feature is finally available to (some) transit riders: Open Payments. Riders of the RapidRide G line are now able to use common contactless payment methods such as tap-enabled credit cards and digital wallets on smartphones to pay fare at ORCA readers installed along the line. The feature has been in the works for ORCA for years, with a full rollout expected this spring after this “soft launch”.

As of today, riders are able to pay fare (full-price adult fares only) by tapping their credit or debit cards, or digital devices like phones and watches. The system will accept taps from the most common tap-enabled bank cards or smart devices, including iPhones. Unfortunately, ORCA cardholders are still unable to load their ORCA card into digital wallets on iPhones.

Tacoma’s abandoned railroad tunnel. (Pretty Gritty Tours)

1980 Seattle bus and walking tour. A short KCTS documentary. (Tom Speer)

A realtor looks at Seattle in ten years. (Living in Seattle with Sean McConnell) Best taken with a grain of salt, and he’s trying to drum up buyers, but here’s what people are saying. Just don’t look too closely at a Ballard to Bellevue trip on light rail.

This is an open thread.

Yesterday, King County Metro launched its next generation of battery-electric buses (BEB) with a new livery and upgraded operator safety partitions. The new buses from Gillig will begin service on February 2, 2026 with periodic service on routes 105, 128, 161, 165, 184, and the F Line. The rollout of these buses marks a key milestone for Metro as it continues towards its goal of a zero emission fleet by 2035.

Metro’s new fleet will be based out of the brand new Tukwila Base. The Tukwila Base has capacity for 120 buses and sports 123 pantograph chargers. Each 40ft Gillig bus has an estimated range of 240–280 miles and can carry up to 68 passengers. Metro’s initial order with Gillig was for 89 battery-electric buses. If the agency is satisfied with the buses from this order, it will have the option to purchase up to 395 buses.

Earlier this week, Sound Transit shared an updated proposal for its ST Express restructure that will be implemented later this year. In response to the initial ST Express restructure proposal, Sound Transit received nearly 4,500 survey responses and in-person feedback at three open house events. Using that input, the agency has proposed minor adjustments for a few routes.

Sound Transit is accepting feedback on the new proposal between now and February 9, 2026. To provide feedback, attend one of the open house events listed below, or email servicechanges@soundtransit.org.

Information Sessions:

• January 30 from 12 to 1 pm
• February 3 from 6 to 7 pm

New Changes

Since the previous ST Express restructure proposal, only the routes below have been updated.

There Are No Safe Streets under Fascist Occupation (streets.mn)

Transportation:

• Sound Transit Board Abruptly Removes Key Committee Chair Ahead of Pivotal Year (The Urbanist)
• New Seattle bikeways coming to Space Needle ahead of World Cup (The Seattle Times, $). Free coverage from Seattle Bike Blog.
• World Cup Cities Set to Win $100 Million in Federal Transit Aid (Bloomberg CityLab)
• The Light Rail’s Cross Lake Connection Will Be an Aries (The Stranger)
• ‘Moving San Francisco’ exhibit highlights 122 years of SF Muni magic (Mission Local)

On December 6, 2025, Sound Transit’s Link extension to Federal Way (FWLE) welcomed its first passengers. This 1 Line extension added three new stations along eight miles of new track south of Angle Lake. The three new stations — Kent Des Moines, Star Lake, and Federal Way Downtown — are located in suburban communities between SR-99 and I-5. Each station has connections to local bus service, pickup and drop-off areas, and lots of parking. In a Board of Directors Meeting on December 18, Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine shared the three new stations had a combined 16,000 boardings on opening day.

Sound Transit’s ridership dashboard has been updated to include the December ridership data for the three new Link stations. While these initial data can share some insights, it is worth noting a few reasons why this data may not represent future ridership. First, the FWLE opened on December 6, so a week’s worth of ridership is not measured. Second, opening day brought many more riders than usual as people wanted to check out the new stations. Third, King County Metro’s South Link Connections restructure has not been implemented yet. Once these changes are implemented, more south King County residents will have a more direct bus route to a Link station. To reduce the impact of the first two anomalies, the analysis below is focused on the average weekday ridership, adjusted for the number of days the stations were open. With those caveats in mind, let’s take a look at the December ridership data.

Praise for Link from a British perspective. (CityMoose)

Toronto’s Finch West light rail, which opened in December, is slower than Link’s surface segments. (Not Just Bikes)

This is the gray line in the top left of Toronto’s subway map. It’s not the Ontario Line we featured in the automate Ballard article two weeks ago, which is not in that map and is under construction.

This is an open thread.

This morning, Sound Transit announced the East Link Extension segment between South Bellevue station and International District/Chinatown station will open on March 28, 2026. When it opens, the 2 Line will be extended from South Bellevue station to Lynnwood City Center station, via Seattle. This extension will open two more Link stations: Mercer Island and Judkins Park.

Since the live wire test in September 2025, Sound Transit has run test trains and conducted operator training across the I-90 bridge. In preparation for the extension opening, Sound Transit will begin simulated service for the full 2 Line in February. During this final stage of testing, 2 Line trains will run the full length of the line. Passengers will be allowed on the trains between Downtown Redmond and South Bellevue, and between International District/Chinatown and Lynnwood City Center. Passengers will not be permitted on the trains between International District/Chinatown and South Bellevue.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of the First Hill Line streetcar in Seattle. The 2.5 mile, 10 station line connects Pioneer Square, the International District, Yesler Terrace, First Hill and Capitol Hill. Since 2016, the line has carried over 10 million passengers.

The First Hill Line launched in 2016 after years of delay. Construction of the route was primarily funded by Sound Transit as a mitigation for dropping a proposed First Hill Link station. Sound Transit contributed to funding the route’s operations with $5 million annually until 2023. In 2024 and 2025, the Seattle Transit Measure provided funding to operate both streetcar lines.

Since 2016, most of the discussion around the First Hill Line has focused on the Cultural Connector extension (previously known as the Center City Connector). This extension would connect Seattle’s two streetcar routes via dedicated right of way on 1st Ave. The Cultural Connector was initially scheduled to open in 2020, but has been delayed several times as cost estimates have more than doubled. Let’s take a look at a few key events for the First Hill Streetcar and the Culture Connector from the past 10 years.

Reminder: From 10pm on Friday, Jan. 23, through Saturday, Jan. 24, the DSTT will be closed between Capitol Hill and SODO stations for signal upgrades. Shuttle buses will run every 10-15 minutes. Normal service will resume on Sunday, Jan 25, to serve the NFC Championship game. The Los Angeles Rams will play the Seahawks at Lumen Field at 3:30pm. Edit: the original closure was scheduled for the full weekend, but has been shortened to avoid impacting service for the major sports event.

Local Transit News:

• Sound Transit is accepting applications for volunteers from the Snohomish, North King, East King, or South King subareas for its Community Oversight Panel (Sound Transit)
• Metro studying transit improvements on Route 60 (Metro Matters)
• The First Hill Streetcar — weird, hard-working, and a little lonely — turns 10 (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Kitsap Transit riders can now sign up for automated rider alerts (Kitsap Transit News)
• WA bill would clarify line between e-bikes and e-motos, task state staff with developing enforcement guidelines (Seattle Bike Blog)
• E-Bike Boosters Ask: Is It All Downhill From Here? (Bloomberg CityLab)
• Pierce County’s Tight Budget Forces Tough Choices (The Urbanist) with potential impacts to transit service
• Seattle’s new Waterfront bike lanes topped a list of best new bike lanes opened nationwide last year (People For Bikes)
• Op-Ed: Light Rail Could Transform Bellevue’s Eastgate into Urban Oasis (The Urbanist)
• Uber Profits At Our Expense (The Overhead Wire)
• Seattle Is Building Light Rail Like It’s 1999 (Bloomberg CityLab)

On New Year’s Eve, SDOT posted a short video highlighting several projects it completed in 2025, distilling a longer summary shared in a blog post earlier in December. The blog post gives roughly equal space to each of its major initiatives, highlighting SDOT’s “Hot Bike Summer” of street improvements, various bridge maintenance projects, ongoing transit improvements, implementation of the Seattle Transportation Plan, community outreach efforts, and traffic incident response.

The 2.5-minute video spends little time showing transit improvement projects, but the opening highlight in SDOT’s video is the Beacon Ave S & 15th Ave S Safety Project. Only a few months after SDOT completed this project, a cyclist named Alley attempted to cross the freshly reworked Beacon Ave S at Stevens Street. Tragically, Alley was struck and killed by a driver who fled the scene.

As ST3 construction cost has skyrocketed, Sound Transit is considering truncating the Ballard line at Smith Cove for now. Ballard riders would need to continue on the bus as very few people live around that station.

When Paris faced similar topography challenges to serve the end of line 8 by bus, they built an aerial gondola line instead. Building such line is far cheaper than extending the subway underground a recent short video explains while still providing faster transit times than the bus lines. The gondola line just opened in December and was built by Doppelmayr who constructed and operates many cable-operated systems here in the U.S. as well as around the world.

Evan Edinger tries the buses in suburban southern New Jersey.

That video got a lot of comments saying why public transit can’t work in the US. So Evan made another video refuting these claims. It’s a comedy.

The second video also refers to his walking to school video, which we covered in September

This is an open thread.

Yesterday, Sound Transit’s Rider Experience and Operations Committee shared an update on the agency’s 2026 Service Plan. Along with aggregated community feedback on the previously shared ST Express service changes, the Sound Transit announced a pilot night-owl route between Sea-Tac Airport and downtown Seattle.

Last year, Sound Transit shared a proposal for three night-owl routes between Seattle and Everett, Lakewood, and Redmond. This proposal was well received with about 90% of survey respondents supporting the proposed routes. Negative feedback on the night-owl routes focused on travel times and the proposed routes not serving all stations.

Before the three night-owl routes are (likely) implemented in Fall 2026, Sound Transit will pilot a night-owl route between downtown Seattle and SeaTac Airport. The new route will provide service between SeaTac/Airport, Tukwila International Blvd, SODO, Stadium, International District / Chinatown, Pioneer Square, Symphony, and Westlake stations. Buses will run every 30 minutes between 12am and 4am.

This route will begin service on March 28 and connect late night/early morning travelers and airport employees with most of King County Metro’s night owl network.

This is an open thread.

This morning, Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson announced two executive orders delivering on campaign promises: one will accelerate production of emergency shelter and affordable housing, and the other will quickly implement transit improvements starting on Denny Way. Executive Order 2026-01 directs SDOT to “design and install at least one dedicated bus lane on Denny Way, with the goal of significantly improving the reliability, speed, and performance of Route 8 and other transit services operating in the corridor.”

Route 8 has long suffered from chronic congestion on Denny Way in South Lake Union (SLU). The crosstown route uses the only east-west corridor that connects the Seattle Center and SLU with Capitol Hill. Unfortunately, this corridor is also a popular feeder street for I-5. In 2018, an eastbound bus lane was installed on Denny between Minor Ave and Steward St. Despite the one-block-long bus lane, Route 8 continued to flounder in traffic. As South Lake Union has grown, the route’s reliability has continued to suffer. In July 2025, the Fix the L8 campaign hosted a race during which people walked, danced, and paraded on Denny between Dexter and Stewart Avenues faster than a Metro Route 8 bus. Consequently, construction of more dedicated bus lanes on Denny became a significant promise of Wilson’s campaign for Mayor.

Update: The entire T Line will be replaced by buses from Tuesday January 20 at 6:12pm through Friday January 23 evening to replace broken rails. Saturday January 24 may also be affected if necessary. The shuttle buses will have the same schedule as Link and will be free.

Update 2: Metro is looking for part-time drivers. Apply by January 23.

Transportation:

• Op-Ed: How to Close Sound Transit’s 35-Billion-Dollar Gap Without Breaking the System (The Urbanist)
• Op-Ed: Sea-Tac Airport Transportation: Off the Road and Onto the Train (The Urbanist)
• Interstate Bridge Staff Hid Information About Ballooning Cost of Giant Highway Project (Oregon Journalism Project). Additional coverage by The Urbanist.
• Confirmed: Non-Driving Infrastructure Creates ‘Induced Demand,’ Too (Streetsblog USA)
• 27 Million Fewer Car Trips: Life After a Year of Congestion Pricing (New York Times, gift link)
• Alon Levy compared transit fare practices around the world (Pedestrian Observations)
• One Week In, Katie Wilson Charts the Path Ahead (The Urbanist)
• Transit Scheduling 101: Developing A Runtime (Thoughts About Cities)
• Reece Martin reflects on the difficulties of pragmatic transit advocacy (Next Metro)

On Monday, Sound Transit announced seats on all Link trains will be upgraded to use vinyl inserts instead of the current cloth covers. This change comes following feedback the agency received during a pilot of these seats in 2024. The vinyl inserts are similar to the vinyl seats that King County Metro first started using in its fleet in 2011.

During the pilot, Sound Transit solicited rider input on the cleanliness, comfort, appearance, and overall satisfaction of the vinyl seats vs the cloth seats. The vinyl seats ranked higher in every category. Additionally, maintenance data showed the vinyl seats are more durable and easier to clean.

When Toronto faced escalating cost on their relief line, instead of extending their existing subway network, they decided to build a separate Ontario line and use lighter and shorter automated trains rather than their prior subway trains. Lighter trains mean faster acceleration, allowing steeper climbs including from within a tunnel to shallow stations and even elevated portions and smaller tunnel diameters. Shorter trains mean smaller stations which can fit more easily into the existing urban landscape. A separate line minimized the impact on the rest of the transit system.

As Sound Transit ponders escalating construction cost, it may want to consider the same. It may not only save them money during construction and operation, it may also provide a better ridership experience.