Welcome to all the new and returning students at UW!

As students, you are the lucky recipients of the best transit deal in town — the U-Pass, embedded in your Husky Card — which covers unlimited rides on:

King County Metro buses

Sound Transit (Link Light Rail, ST Express buses, and Sounder commuter rail)

Snohomish County Community Transit buses

Everett Transit buses

Pierce County Transit buses

Kitsap County Transit buses and foot ferries

Seattle Streetcars

King County Water Taxis

UW Night Ride

The U-Pass does not cover rides on Washington State Ferries or the Seattle Center Monorail.

The U-Pass serves as a transit smart card, which you tap on an ORCA (“One Regional Card for All”) reader to be recorded as having paid the fare. Even though you are already pre-paid for unlimited rides on the above services, you still have to tap, as the various agencies use these taps to divvy up their share of the revenue from monthly passes.

This year, you have at your disposal a much better transit system than past classes have had. You have a brand new Link Light Rail station down by Husky Stadium. The train gets you downtown in just over 6 minutes. It also gets you to Capitol Hill in 3 minutes and to the airport in 44 minutes, with no congestion to slow it down. Well, maybe 1-3 minutes during rush hour, but that’s it.

It gets even better in 2021, when Link Light Rail reaches the U-District Station, Roosevelt Station at NE 65th St, and Northgate Station. In 2023, it reaches Lynnwood to the north, Highline College to the south, and Bellevue and the Redmond Microsoft campus to the east.

With your support, the Link Light Rail system could reach Everett in the north, Tacoma in the south, downtown Redmond in the east, connect to Ballard and West Seattle from downtown, and reach Kirkland and Issaquah on a single transfer. On November 8, you will get to vote on this major transportation package, known as Sound Transit 3, or Regional Proposition 1 as it is called on the ballot. But first, you have to register to vote, by October 10, if you aren’t already registered to vote here. Do it online right now!

The package is called Sound Transit 3 because it is the sequel to the package that created the Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority in 1996 and ST2, passed in 2008, that is extending the light rail system to Lynnwood, Microsoft’s Redmond campus, and Des Moines.

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The University of Washington is the second-largest transit hub in the state, behind downtown Seattle. It is served by a plethora of transit lines including:

Link Light Rail to Capitol Hill, downtown, the stadia where the Seahawks, Mariners, and Sounders play, Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, the airport, and other parts of SeaTac (new this year)

ST Express buses

540 to Kirkland

541 to northeast Bellevue and west Redmond (new this year)

542 to Redmond

556 to Bellevue, Issaquah, and Northgate Mall

586 to Tacoma

King County Metro buses

31 to Fremont, north Queen Anne, and Magnolia

32 to Fremont, north Queen Anne, and the Seattle Center

43 to Capitol Hill and downtown

44 to Wallingford and Ballard

45 to north Green Lake, Greenwood, and north Ballard

48 to the Central District and Rainier Valley

49 to Capitol Hill

65 to Children’s Hospital, Wedgwood, and Lake City

67 to Northgate Mall

70 to Eastlake, South Lake Union, and downtown

71 to Ravenna, View Ridge, and Wedgwood (new to campus this year)

73 to Maple Leaf and Jackson Park (new to campus this year)

75 to Children’s Hospital, Sand Point, Lake City, and Northgate

78 to Laurelhurst and Children’s Hospital (new this year)

83 Night Owl to Capitol Hill, Ravenna, Maple Leaf, Eastlake, and downtown

167 to Renton

197 to Federal Way

271 to Bellevue and Issaquah

277 to Juanita

372 to Ravenna, Lake City, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore, and Bothell

373 to Ravenna, Jackson Park, and Shoreline

Snohomish County Community Transit buses

810 to Mountlake Terrace, Lynnwood Transit Center, Ash Way Park & Ride, Mariner P&R, and McCollum P&R

821 to Lynnwood and Marysville

855 to Lynnwood

860 to Mariner P&R and McCollum P&R

871 to Mountlake Terrace and Edmonds

880 to Ash Way P&R, Swamp Creek P&R, and Mukilteo

UW Night Ride loop, along with UW Police Department’s Night Walk service