King County Metro - Fleet

Fleet

Metro operates one of the largest bus-only fleets in the country. Metro has a high concentration of articulated buses—almost half its current fleet and the largest articulated fleet in North America. Metro's use of articulated coaches dates back to 1978, when it was the first large agency in the country to adopt the technology. The other half of the fleet consists of mostly Gillig Phantom high-floor coaches and New Flyer low-floor coaches, the latter of which are used mostly on routes within the Seattle city limits.

The agency pioneered technologies in widespread use today. In 1979, the AMG trolleys were ordered with some of the first wheelchair lifts in the nation, promising a completely new level of independence for disabled residents. Early lifts were severely flawed, but by the mid 1980s the lifts were generally reliable and were ordered on all new buses. With the retirement of the 1400-series buses in 1999, the entire fleet became wheelchair-accessible—again, the first fleet its size to do so. Metro was reluctant to adopt low-floor buses, not buying any until 2003. Low-floor coaches have slightly reduced seating capacity (because the wheelwells intrude further into the passenger compartment) which may have been a concern as many of Metro's routes are frequently "standing room only". Whatever the reason for the delay, Metro has now embraced low-floor buses, and all new fleet additions since 2003 have been low-floor. Like Golden Gate Transit and SamTrans in California's San Francisco Bay area of (and unlike most transit agencies), almost all of Metro's fleet has highback non-reclining seating as opposed to lowback seating that is used by most other transit agencies on local routes. These buses operate on both local and express routes.