Sidelined Metro buses are coming back soon

The Metro buses taken out of service in December should be back on the road soon.

King County Metro sidelined over a hundred buses during the holidays when workers discovered steering column issues. Routes were canceled in parts of Seattle and north King County, which caused big headaches for Metro riders. Metro sends out notifications via email, Twitter, and its website to keep riders updated on any cancellations.

The Rt. 271 trip to Issaquah TC scheduled at 4:19pm frm 15 Av NE & NE 43 St & three other trips are not operating. Check your trip: Text your stop number to 62550 or look up your stop in Metro's Online Next Departures tool: https://t.co/Q1BFIPUlsr

— King County Metro Transit Alerts 🚏🚍⚠️ (@kcmetroalerts) February 9, 2023

Spokesperson Jeff Switzer said the issues are being fixed.

So as we encountered the steering column issue, we also knew that we needed to work with New Flyer [the steering wheel supplier] to understand if there were going to be any further issues going forward with steering column maintenance. And so, we embarked on an enhanced inspection process that helped us identify when steering columns are going to be needed to be replaced. And so through that enhanced inspection process, we found that there were additional coaches that we’re going to need new steering columns, and we continue to tackle them, we’re down to about two dozen steering columns that need to be replaced at this point. But also recognizing that this enhanced and enhanced steering column inspection process is going to continue to monitor that going forward so that when we identify an issue, we can tackle it right away.”

Last year, Metro identified over 100 buses that needed to be parked right away. They took steps to identify repairs for those buses. Through the inspection process, they found dozens more. “We were definitely focused on getting the parts in and then getting the buses back on the street,” Switzer explained.

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Metro tries to always inform riders of a canceled run or route.

“We’re really working hard to try to give people maybe a week up to two weeks’ notice that their trip may or may not be operating for the recurring trips. That said, on a day-to-day basis, if there’s an instance where a bus is not available, or if there’s an operator who’s not available to deliver that trip, there could be canceled trips, here and there,” Switzer said. “But by and large, across the 11,000 bus trips that we operate each day, there’s going to be something else in the schedule that people can climb on.”

Rt. 255 trip to Totem Lake TC scheduled at 4:13pm frm University Distr, & two other trips are not operating today. Check your trip: Text your stop number to 62550 or look up your stop in Metro’s Online Next Departures tool: https://t.co/Q1BFIPUlsr

— King County Metro Transit Alerts 🚏🚍⚠️ (@kcmetroalerts) February 9, 2023

Switzer said Metro is hiring part-time operators and mechanics.

“We continue to need more, we have the challenge, just like everybody else was trying to make sure that the workforce that we have is delivering the service on the street and we could use your help. We could use people taking a look at King county.gov and seeing if they want to join our team.”

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