Sound Transit progresses with Stride project, breaks ground on Bus OMF
Sound Transit broke ground on its Bus Operations and Maintenance Facility (Bus OMF), which will eventually become the home of the three-line Stride bus rapid transit (BRT) system. The new BRT system will improve travel around Lake Washington, cutting trip times and improving reliability between Burien and Bellevue, Bellevue and Lynnwood, and from Shoreline to Bothell, Wash., operating battery-electric buses every 10 to 15 minutes primarily using high-occupancy vehicle and dedicated lanes.
“The start of construction on the new Bus Operations and Maintenance Facility for Stride is an exciting milestone that will lead to better mobility for hundreds of thousands of people,” said Dave Somers, Snohomish County executive and chair of the Sound Transit Board. “In the short term, the construction of this state-of-the-art, sustainably built facility will boost economic and workforce development in the area. Longer term, Sound Transit’s Stride network will knit together major transportation corridors so either light rail or bus rapid transit are available all along the I-5 and I-405 corridors between Everett and Tacoma.”
The Bus OMF, which is located north of the Canyon Park Park-and-Ride in Bothell, will include a new operations and maintenance building and parking structures for buses and support vehicles for Stride and some ST Express bus service. It will also include the charging infrastructure necessary to support Stride’s double-decker and articulated battery-electric buses, and it will include space for fleet expansion to accommodate increases in demand for bus service in the future.
“This operations and maintenance facility will be the anchor for our upcoming 45-mile Stride bus rapid transit network, connecting 11 cities all along I-405 and SR 522 to Link light rail and to each other,” said Sound Transit CEO Dow Constantine. “It will bring dozens of living-wage jobs to Canyon Park and Snohomish County, operating and maintaining a first-in-the-nation fleet of fast, reliable, all-electric buses.”