Seattle’s Sound Transit and project partners celebrated the groundbreaking of Sound Transit’s Bus Operations and Maintenance Facility (Bus OMF). 

The Bus OMF will primarily serve as the home of Stride, an all-new three-line bus rapid transit (BRT) system that will transform travel around Lake Washington. 

Stride will dramatically cut travel times and improve transit reliability between Burien and Bellevue, Bellevue and Lynnwood, and from Shoreline to Bothell, operating battery-electric buses every 10 to 15 minutes primarily using HOV and dedicated lanes.

Sound Transit’s New Bus OMF

The Bus OMF 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, as well as 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 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.”