Seattle Bus Tunnel

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Buses operating in dedicated transit tunnels are very rare. One city where this used to be done was Seattle, Washington State, USA.

Originally opening in September 1990, and wholly located within the city's 'free travel' zone the 1 & 1/3rd mile (2.1km) tunnels were served by a fleet of Italian Breda duobuses, with some services providing a direct link to the city's airport.

It featured 5 stations which opened on Mondays - Saturdays only. At the time of construction rail tracks were also installed for a future light rail service. Unfortunately despite this commendable forward thinking it was subsequently decided that part of the light rail line will follow a different alignment than the existing tunnels, so on 24th September 2005 the bus subway was closed for two year period of rebuilding.

Most of the duobuses were actually withdrawn well in advance of the closure (with many being converted to pure trolleybuses for use on surface routes) and - amazingly - replaced with diseasal powered buses. (diseasal = disease diesel)

In April 2005 local users were reporting on Internet discussion groups that the tunnels were often somewhat smelly from (what thinking people know to be) the poisonous diesel engine exhaust fumes.

Whilst it is true that the buses are diesel electric hybrids they still needed to use the fossil fuel traction package whilst underground, although this was in a special 'hush' mode which means that the only operate between stations and at much reduced power.

Apparently the choice of fossil fuel buses was influenced by the transport operators' belief that it is not possible to mix overhead wire powered light rail and electric trolleybuses / duo-buses in an underground tunnel system - even though Essen proved otherwise!

In Seattle the buses were driver steered, it might be assumed that for safety's sake "some" sort of guidance system would have been needed - if only to reduce the chance of a bus accidentally hitting the tunnel wall - especially within the portion of the bus subway which featured narrow London Underground 'tube-like' tunnels (as seen here), but this was not the situation.

This video compilation was filmed in May 1993. The sequences only follow a cursory order and because of faulty camcorder lens optics (which was only discovered once back home) the images are not as sharp as they should have been. Which is a shame.

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The tunnel reopened on 24th September 2007, although again for hybrid diseasal buses only.

Channel: Travel & Events
Uploaded: February 24, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Author: citytransportinfo

Length: 00:06:07
Rating: 4.40
Views: 161773

Tags: seattle bus tunnel metro busway brt transit

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Video Comments:
jeffeaston (January 8, 2009 at 6:21 am)
muse be strange goin down the subway to get a bus

why are there tracks?
chillah182 (January 3, 2009 at 5:46 pm)
why is there a bus tunnel? ^^
verxintRising (December 30, 2008 at 6:29 pm)
Fuck! I had completely forgotten about these!

Where the hell did they go?!
Atoutlem0nde (December 6, 2008 at 2:59 pm)
I always love going through the tunnel. I hardly ever get to (Only twice since the Kingdome was torn down), so it's a rare occasion for me.

Anyways, how old is this video? The buses are WAY different here than they are now.
rffmedia (December 6, 2008 at 11:02 pm)
It says it was filmed in 1993
chocho220 (January 7, 2009 at 3:13 pm)
Since the Kingdome was torn down! My goodness that was such a long time ago. Ah, yes let's all reminisce.
rockplannet1 (December 4, 2008 at 10:53 am)
Surely a Train or tram would be a better option than this mixture of both.
verxintRising (December 30, 2008 at 6:29 pm)
This is Seattle, remember?
WMATAvids (November 7, 2008 at 3:57 pm)
They should get E60LFR's
citytransportinfo (October 30, 2008 at 4:47 pm)
(Internet Translation)
Hola.

En el vídeo éstos son ' duo-buses'. Tienen dos sistemas y a veces trabajos de impulsión como trolebuses eléctricos del 100% y a veces como autobuses diesel del 100%.

Pero esto fue filmada en 1993.

Desde 2007 utilizan diversos autobuses que sean ' hybrid' - un motor diesel más un sistema eléctrico de la batería que trabajan juntos.

respetos

Simon