Roads

Highways
All King County communities are accessible from Seattle over an efficient, well-planned freeway system. The average commute time between Seattle and outlying cities and suburbs is 23 minutes (non-peak drive time) and 45 minutes (peak drive time). The County’s transportation network is anchored by three major highways:

• U.S. Interstate 5, running north-to-south, from Vancouver, British Columbia to San Diego, California; provides quick transportation from Seattle up and down the West Coast.
• Interstate 90, running west-to-east; connects Seattle with New York.
• Interstate 405, running parallel to Interstate 5 east of Lake Washington; connects cities on the “Eastside,” including Bellevue, Redmond and Renton.

For more information on traffic patterns in the Seattle Metropolitan region, visit: www.psrc.org. For information on all available Puget Sound public transportation options including route maps, go to: http://www.soundtransit.org/.

Trucking Services
Truck transportation in Washington is made possible by over 3,700 interstate trucking companies, including common carrier and contract companies. With the inclusion of Interstate Commerce Commission registered companies, and those firms exempt from ICC registration, there are about 12,700 trucking companies in the state. Washington also ranks among the top 10 states in general freight tonnage carried by trucks intrastate. This level of competition results in favorable negotiated freight rates.

Motor Freight Shipping from King County

Destination       Hours   Miles

Atlanta              60         2,653

Chicago            49         2,066

Dallas               50         2,119

Denver              35         1,356

Los Angeles      28         1,160

Minneapolis      40         1,655

New York          60+       2,901

San Francisco   18         811

Source: Individual Freight Forwarders
Public Transportation

Public transportation within King County is provided by King County Metro, which has a fleet of 1,200 buses and the largest public vanpool fleet in the country, with over 700 vans. The agency is part of a three-county regional computerized ride match system that matches commuters for carpools and vanpools. The county and the Washington State Department of Transportation operate a system of free “park and ride” and “park and carpool” lots throughout the county, from which commuters can connect with buses or their pooling arrangements. King County Metro also has partnership grants available to businesses to help them reduce commute trips to their work sites. High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) lanes are enforced 24 hours a day on major highways in the county.

Sound Transit is overseeing a $3.9 billion project to provide a new system of 25 miles of electric light rail, 81 miles of commuter rail, more than 100 miles of HOV Expressway (with direct access on/off ramps), 20 new regional express bus routes, and region-wide coordination of schedules and fares among all local and regional transit services. The project encompasses major portions of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. This ten-year project was initiated in 1996.

Many commuters also rely on the Washington State Department of Transportation’s ferry system. This system extends the state highways across Puget Sound, transporting over 10 million vehicles a year (3.3 percent commercial trucks or large motor homes). Walk-on commuters are also encouraged to use the system with low fare commuter books and ferry runs that meet transit connections. It is estimated that roughly 25.5 million passengers and vehicles used the ferry system each year.