Sound Transit breaks ground on massive Bothell bus facility

EVERETT — Sound Transit started construction Tuesday on a massive, 360,000-square-foot bus facility in Bothell, set to become a hub for the agency’s new bus rapid transit system.

The facility, known as the Bus Operations and Maintenance Facility, will include a new maintenance building and parking structures for Sound Transit buses, including room for existing express buses and new buses built for the yet-to-open Stride bus rapid transit network. It will also include charging infrastructure for the Stride buses, which are set to be battery-electric.

The new facility will be located near the Canyon Park park and ride in Bothell. In May, Sound Transit set aside $274 million to build it.

“In the short term, the construction of this state-of-the-art, sustainably built facility will boost economic and workforce development in the area,” Snohomish County Executive Dave Somers wrote in a release Tuesday. “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.”

Voters approved the construction of the facility, along with the 45-mile Stride bus rapid transit network, as part of the $54 billion Sound Transit 3 ballot measure passed in 2016. That new network will utilize three lines connecting Burien to Bellevue, Bellevue to Lynnwood and Shoreline to Bothell with buses running daily every 10 to 15 minutes.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/sound-transit-breaks-ground-on-massive-bothell-bus-facility/