How to ride transit in Seattle

Seattle’s transit is run by a small crowd of agencies — trains from one, most buses from another, plus a streetcar, a monorail, and boats — but don’t let that scare you. One ORCA card (or, since early 2026, a plain contactless bank card) works across nearly all of it, and a flat $3 fare covers the trains and buses you’ll actually use.

The basics

The backbone is Link light rail, two lines that share the downtown tunnel:

• 1 Line — the north–south spine, from Lynnwood through the University of Washington, downtown, and the airport, ending at Federal Way.
• 2 Line — downtown to the Eastside: Mercer Island, Bellevue, and Redmond, crossing Lake Washington on a floating bridge (the first light rail in the world to do it — the crossing opened in March 2026).

Between Lynnwood and the International District the two lines overlap, so downtown trains come every 4–5 minutes.

Around that: King County Metro runs the city’s buses, including the lettered RapidRide lines (A, C, D, E, G, H…) that come every 10–15 minutes. Sounder is a weekday commuter train to Tacoma and Everett. The Seattle Streetcar is two short, unconnected lines (South Lake Union and First Hill). The Monorail is a fun two-minute hop from Westlake to Seattle Center and the Space Needle. And this being Seattle, there are boats: the King County Water Taxi to West Seattle and Vashon, and the big Washington State Ferries to Bainbridge and Bremerton from Colman Dock.

How to pay

Everything except the monorail and the state ferries works on a tap:

1. Tap a contactless bank card or your phone (Apple Pay / Google Pay / Samsung Pay) on the yellow reader — new as of February 2026. It charges the $3.00 adult fare and honors the 2-hour transfer window as long as you keep tapping the same card. The catches: adult fare only (no discounts), and one card per rider — you can’t pay for a group with one phone.
2. Get an ORCA card — from station ticket machines, participating stores, or myorca.com, or as a digital card in Google Wallet. This is the way to go if you qualify for a reduced fare, want a day pass, or want to load a monthly pass.
3. Transit GO Ticket — Metro’s official ticket app, if you’d rather buy on your phone. Note its transfers only cover Metro buses, not the trains.
4. Cash on buses — exact change only; drivers carry none.

Link has mostly open platforms rather than fare gates, so it runs on proof of payment: tap the reader before you board — at Link stations the readers are near the platform entrance, not on the train. On Link you only tap when entering (the fare is flat — no tap-off needed), but on Sounder you must tap on at your starting station and tap off at your destination, since its fare depends on distance.

Fares

One $3 tap buys your ride plus 2 hours of transfer credit across ORCA-participating services — hop from train to bus and the transfer is free.

A few things to know:

• There’s no automatic fare capping — unlike some cities, the system won’t stop charging you after two rides. If you’ll ride three or more times in a day, load the $6 Regional Day Pass onto an ORCA card up front.
• Youth ride free on essentially everything — trains, buses, streetcar, water taxi, even the state ferries.
• The exceptions: Sounder is distance-based ($3.25–$5.75). The Water Taxi costs more ($5.25 to West Seattle with ORCA). The Monorail is $4.00 with its own quirks (see below). State ferry walk-on to Bainbridge is $11.35 — but only westbound; the ride back to Seattle is free.

Getting from the airport

Take the Link 1 Line from SEA Airport station.

• Time: about 38 minutes to Westlake, in the heart of downtown.
• Cost: $3.00 — same flat fare as any ride.
• How often: every 8–10 minutes most of the day.
• Finding it: from baggage claim, head to carousel 16, go up to the skybridge level, cross Skybridge 6, and follow signs left through the parking garage to the station. Free electric carts run the route daily from 5 a.m. to midnight if you’d rather not walk it.
• Hours: trains run from roughly 5 a.m. to midnight. After the last train, Sound Transit’s Night Bus runs between the airport and downtown about every 30 minutes, so a late arrival isn’t stranded.

Apps to download

• Transit GO Ticket — Metro’s official app for buying tickets on your phone.
• myORCA — order, reload, and manage your ORCA card.
• OneBusAway — real-time arrivals; it was invented in Seattle and locals swear by it.
• Google Maps or Transit — solid trip planning with live data across all the agencies.

When it runs

Link runs roughly 5 a.m. to midnight, seven days a week — about every 8 minutes at peak and every 10–15 minutes otherwise, with the downtown core at 4–5 minutes where the lines overlap. RapidRide buses come at least every 10 minutes at peak and every 15 minutes most other times.

Overnight, Metro’s Night Owl network keeps a skeleton of popular bus routes running midnight to 5 a.m. every day, covering downtown, many neighborhoods, and the airport — and between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m. you can ask the driver for a Night Stop between regular stops on most routes.

Accessibility

Link trains board level with the platform and stations have elevators; buses kneel and deploy ramps. Access is Metro’s door-to-door paratransit for riders whose disability prevents using regular service, covering the area within ¾ mile of bus and Link routes ($1.75 per ride). Visitors with ADA certification from elsewhere can use Access for up to 21 days a year — call Metro’s certification office before your trip. At the airport, free electric carts connect the terminal skybridge and the Link station daily until midnight.

Etiquette & local quirks

• Tap every ride, every time — including transfers, and before boarding at rail stations. Skipping the tap on a “free-looking” open platform is the classic tourist mistake.
• Stand right, walk left on escalators — Seattleites take this one seriously.
• The two streetcar lines don’t connect to each other. Check a map before assuming the streetcar goes where you’re going.
• The Monorail is its own little world: ORCA works at its faregates, but bank-card tap does not, and since January 2026 paying with ORCA e-purse no longer includes a free transfer — it’s a separate $4.
• Riding the ferry to Bainbridge is the best cheap sightseeing in the city — and walk-ons only pay in the westbound direction, so the return trip is free.
• Let riders off first, and keep the front seats free for seniors and riders with disabilities.

Good to know

• Fare enforcement: Sound Transit’s Fare Ambassadors check proof of payment on trains and platforms. The system is forgiving at first — your first two violations in a year bring warnings, the third a $50 fine, the fourth $75, and beyond that it goes to district court. Fines can also be resolved by loading the amount onto an ORCA card or taking a class.
• Reduced fares need the right card: bank-card tap always charges full adult fare. Seniors, riders with disabilities, and lower-income riders need an RRFP or ORCA LIFT card to get the $1 fare.
• Crossing county lines? ORCA and your transfer credit also work on Community Transit (Snohomish County) and Pierce Transit buses.
• Weather and hills: it drizzles much of the year and downtown is steeper than it looks on a map — the transit tunnel and frequent buses are your friends. Snow is rare but can snarl buses on hills, so check Metro’s alerts on a bad-weather day.