community transit trip planner online

Transportation Services in Snohomish County

Door-to-door services map.

Fixed Route Transit Map

PLAN A TRANSIT TRIP

Community Transit provides an online mapping tool for you to plan your bus and rail trips.  You can also use FindARide.org to discover door-to-door and other transportation services.

Transit Trip Planner

FindARide.org

APPLY FOR PARATRANSIT

Do you have a disability? You may be eligible for door-to-door service.  Where you live will determine which service you can use.

Community Transit Service Area

Rural Snohomish County

LEARN HOW TO RIDE

Transit agencies have programs to help you learn how to ride transit.

Everett Transit

Community transit.

Fixed-Route Bus Service

An operator of a bus service on a fixed route and fixed schedule. Most buses are wheelchair accessible.

Other Door-to-Door Services

An operator of a shuttle service that may or may not operate on a fixed route or schedule. Some shuttles are wheelchair accessible.

Paratransit Service

An operator of a wheelchair-accessible, shared-ride service for individuals with disabilities, and possibly seniors.

Volunteer Driver Program

A program that includes volunteer drivers and/or volunteer escorts in providing transportation. 

Medicaid Transportation

An operator of non-emergency medical transportation (NEMT) services for Medicaid-managed healthcare plans.

American Cancer Society - Road to Recovery

800-227-2345 | cancer.org

The Road to Recovery Program provides rides to and from treatment thanks to volunteer drivers.

Catholic Community Services

425-257-2111 | ccsww.org

Catholic Community Services provides Disabled Veterans Transportation and Volunteer Transportation for Seniors.

425-353-RIDE (7433) | CommunityTransit.org

Community Transit provides  fixed-route transit throughout Snohomish County, including local bus service, commuter bus service, Swift bus rapid transit, DART (dial-a-ride paratransit), and vanpool vehicles.  If you need in-person assistance, you can visit the customer service center at the Lynnwood Transit Center.  The agency's Travel Instruction Program is a free program individualized to teach the basic skills necessary to successfully ride Community Transit’s regular route system. Training is tailored to meet individual needs. 

Community Transit's DART / Dial-A-Ride

425-347-5912 | dialaride.org

Community Transit's DART (Dial-A-Ride-Transportation) is designed for people whose disability or health condition prevents them from using regular fixed-route bus service. DART's courteous, friendly, well-trained drivers are able to safely assist guests aboard clean, air-conditioned, wheelchair equipped vehicles. Trips can be made for any reason, such as health care, employment, shopping, senior centers, schools, recreation, social activities and more. DART also assists people with transportation needs outside the area by making travel plans with other transportation providers including ACCESS Paratransit (in King County), Everett Para Transit, the Transportation Assistance Program (TAP), Community Transit, King County Metro, Sound Transit and Washington State Ferries.

Community Transit's Alderwood Zip Shuttle

425-521-5600 | CommunityTransit.org

Alderwood Zip is an on-demand ride service for travel anywhere within the Lynnwood City Center and Alderwood area for the same price as our local bus fare. You can take Zip to the mall, movies, rec center, to run errands, and to connect to our bus services and Lynnwood Transit Center.

Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Snohomish County

425-299-3373 | dav.org

DAV provides volunteer-based transportation for veterans.

425-257-7777 | EverettTransit.org

Everett Transit operates local fixed-route and paratransit services seven days a week, including most holidays, within the City of Everett.  If you need in-person assistance, you may visit the Customer Service Center at Everett Station.

Homage's Ethnic Senior Dining Transportation

425-355-1112 | homage.org

Operated by Homage Senior Services, the Ethnic Senior Dining program provides elders the opportunity to come together on a regular basis for culturally appropriate meals, socialization and social services. The program makes it possible for elders to participate in activities at the Multicultural Senior Center located at the Center for Healthy Living in Lynnwood and the Carl Gipson Senior Center in Everett. 

Homage's Pay Your Pal

425-740-3791 | homage.org

If you have a disability that prevents you from driving and you live in an area that is not near a bus stop, Pay Your Pal may be able to help.  Pay Your Pal provides mileage reimbursement for people who volunteer to drive you to work, school or medical appointments. If accepted into the Pay Your Pal program, you are responsible for finding your volunteer drivers.  Your volunteer drivers must be insured and licensed, and their vehicles must be safe and fully operational.

Homage's Transportation Assistance Program (TAP)

425-423-8517 | homage.org

TAP provides door-to-door paratransit service for people who (A) live outside the Everett Paratransit and Community Transit DART service areas, (B) have a disability but do not meet the eligibility requirements for the Everett Paratransit or Community Transit DART service, or (C) are age 60 or older.

Homage's TAP Arlington-Darrington Flex Route Service

Homage is piloting a flex route transit service from Arlington to Darrington that enables qualifying individuals to be picked-up and dropped-off at Route 230 bus stops or at any location within three-quarters of a mile of the route.   All individuals who live in the North Stillaguamish Valley are presumed to qualify.

855-766-7433 | TDD/TTY: 800-246-1646 | hopelink.org

Hopelink brokers non-emergency medical trips in King and Snohomish counties for medical services covered by Medicaid.

Lincoln Hill Retirement Community's Transportation Program

360-629-7403 | lincolnhill-rc.org

The Lincoln Hill Retirement Community operates door-to-door shuttle services for residents of their community in Stanwood.  For medicaid-covered non-emergency medical trips from Stanwood to medical centers  in other communities, the Lincoln Hill Retirement Community can also assist in scheduling a trip.

Lincoln Hill's Snow Goose Transit

360-629-7403 | snowgoosetransit.org

The Lincoln Hill Retirement Community operates Snow Goose Transit, a flex-route transit service connecting North Camano Island, Stanwood, Angel of the Winds Casino Resort, and Arlington

425-347-4700 or 877-916-3729 | gomedstar.com

Medstar provides non-emergency medical transportation services. Medstar utilizes full-size vans with ADA approved hydraulic extra wide 37” lifts and rear air condition and heating. They offer door-to-door service for all passengers and can be an affordable alternative to expensive ambulance service for wheelchair users.

Monroe Community Senior Center's Mobility Lifeline

360-794-6359 | mcsc.org

The Monroe Community Senior Center offers transportation every Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. for older adults age 60+.  Mobility Lifeline will take older adults from and to any destination in Monroe.

Northshore Senior Center

425-286-1026 | mynorthshore.org

Northshore Senior Center Transportation partners with King County Metro, Community Transit, Hopelink and other agencies to provide transportation options to our participants. All Northshore Senior Center Transportation mini-buses are wheelchair lift equipped, and we hire, train and expect our drivers to live up to our transportation motto: Safety, Courtesy, Comfort. Medicaid contractor.

Sauk-Suiattle Tribe / D-C Connect

360-436-2210 | sauk-suiattle.com

The Sauk-Suiattle Tribe operates a fixed route bus route from Darrington to Concrete, and is free to the public.

Snoqualmie Valley Transportation

425-888-7001 | svtbus.org

SVT provides door-to-door and fixed-route service in the Snoqualmie Valley, with routes to medical, social and community centers from North Bend to Monroe.

Sound Transit

888-889-6368 | TTY: 711 | soundtransit.org

Sound Transit operates express bus, light rail, and commuter train services in King, Pierce and Snohomish counties.

Stillaguamish Tribes

360-629-0503 ext 12 | stillaguamish.com

STTS provides transportation services individuals, families, and the Stillaguamish Community (both native and non-native) who need to travel to native businesses and facilities, or to other service facilities in the northern Snohomish County area.

Tulalip Tribal Transit

360-716-4206 | tulaliptribes-nsn.gov

Tulalip Transit is rural public transportation designed to provide service to areas of the Tulalip Tribes Reservation.

Getting around Lynnwood with Community Transit

Community Transit is here to get you where you want to go. We are proud to be a part of the Lynnwood community — we live here, ride here, and drive here. Wherever you need to go in Lynnwood, feel good about how you get there.

About Lynnwood

As a regional crossroads, Lynnwood is home to many popular destinations. These include the Alderwood Mall shopping center, Edmonds College (also home to CWU-Lynnwood) and the Lynnwood Transit Center, which provides local and regional transit access to Seattle, the Eastside and Everett and the rest of Snohomish County. In Lynnwood, near Ash Way Park & Ride, you can find also find the RideStore , which provides more information on Community Transit’s services — including bus schedules, Swift bus rapid transit , DART and Vanpool — as well as purchase or add fare to ORCA cards, good for travel throughout the region.

In 2024, Sound Transit will open a Link light rail station where the current Lynnwood Transit Center exists. Riders will enjoy fast, frequent and reliable service between south Snohomish County and the University of Washington, downtown Seattle, Eastside, Sea-Tac Airport and more. The Lynnwood Link project extends light rail from Northgate into Snohomish County, serving four stations, Shoreline South/148th, Shoreline North/185th, Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood City Center.

Popular Destinations

View our Rider Guides .

Real-time, online schedules replace printed schedules

Community Transit will no longer print Bus Plus books.

The Agency decided to stop printing Bus Plus, a printed schedule and route guide for Community Transit buses that have been available for many years. The last published book was in March 2021.

In place of this book, Community Transit is committed to providing customers with real-time, accurate schedules and trip information. Customers can access this information online through the Community Transit website, trip planner, and other online tools. We will still supply printed schedules upon request, for those who prefer paper schedules. Customers can call Customer Care at (425) 353-7433 .

A few reasons led to the decision to stop printing the Bus Plus book. One of the primary reasons is the long lead time needed to produce the book. As Community Transit schedules and routes can change often, the printing process for the Bus Plus book would need to be completed well before the service change date. As a result, there was a potential that the book could sometimes be out of date by the time it was available to customers, leading to confusion and frustration.

We understand that no longer printing the Bus Plus book may disappoint some longtime customers. However, it is a necessary step for Community Transit to ensure that all schedules and route information are up-to-date and accurate. By supplying real-time information online and continuing to offer printed schedules upon request, Community Transit is committed to making the transition as smooth as possible for all its customers.

Cookie Policy

Community Transit tries out new trip planner

Community Transit has begun a public beta test of a new trip planning interface on its website using the OpenTripPlanner system. The trip planning website will be able to provide real-time departure information and service alerts for Community Transit routes and integrate with other regional agencies, including Everett Transit, Metro, and Sound Transit, in a manner similar to the current trip planner.

The beta trip planner uses a modern map interface similar to Google Maps, putting destinations first and collapsing time and mode options. The current trip planner puts all of these options at equal importance on the launch screen, which isn’t as intuitive for users. The current interface also requires an extra screen for most addresses to confirm which city they are in, while the beta interface uses a simple drop-down box for suggestions as the user types.

The beta trip planner is also able to mix modes, adding a personal bike or use of a park-and-ride for extra flexibility. This comes in handy for some trips that would otherwise have an extremely short or slow bus connection to reach a high-frequency hub, or is out of range for buses but is in easy driving distance to a park-and-ride lot. As a bonus, the bicycling and walking options also include an estimate of calories burned for those who need some extra encouragement to add an active segment to their commute.

The trip planner is also able to use real-time arrivals data from Community Transit’s in-house BusFinder tracker to better plan around delays and other interruptions to service. The beta trip planner would also be compatible with a potential future mobile app (though one would hope that a regional trip-planner would be included in an ORCA NextGen app) and integrate other edge cases like private bike and scooter rental services.

The beta trip planner uses OpenTripPlanner (OTP), an open-source trip planning framework that has been in development for over a decade. It uses General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) data displayed over OpenStreetMap, an open-source mapping website that is edited by users in a manner similar to Wikipedia. OTP was funded with a seed grant from TriMet and has since been adopted by the agency, as well as SEPTA in Philadelphia, Ruter in Oslo, and HSL in Helsinki, among others.

The beta trip planner is available to try out on desktop and mobile at newtripplanner.communitytransit.org , where comments can also be left at the feedback tab. The current trip planner also remains available for those who want to try a straight comparison between results.

12 Replies to “Community Transit tries out new trip planner”

What’s the point in agencies rolling their own trip planner these days vs. just telling it’s customers to use Google Maps?

There’s no guarantee that Google Maps will continue to provide updated information. They are notoriously slow to update around major service changes, and seeing as CT has a few big ones coming soon I would rather use the in-house planner. As a bonus, a separate version of the planner can be made during the lead-up to the service change so users can see their modified commutes (along with the modified schedules, which CT already posts weeks ahead of time).

Since you mention the freshness issue: do you know how the other commercial providers compare in terms of update speed relative to Google when events such as major service changes take place? Just wondering.

Thanks a lot in advance!

What’s the point in doing anything other than giving all user data to Google?

For a less snarky response: relying on Open Trip Planner does not seem particularly bad. OTP is described very well in the article so I will not try to rewrite it (more poorly) here. My understanding is that OTP (and the more general OSM environment) is becoming a reasonable open-source alternative, so it is not surprising that some entities may find it both cheaper in the short term (vs. paying API money to a company like Google) and more politically palatable (in terms of aligning with non-profit entity goals, which I assume CT is as a county entity). There may also be legal implications in a county-level entity like CT directing (potential) customers to a commercial providers with which there is no explicit contract in place; I do not know of such things but perhaps some of the legal experts can comment.

Having said that, there is certainly a trade-off involved (with competing factors including data quality/freshness, ease of integration, long term maintenance load, and upfront/maintenance cost) and the various providers (including both Google and OSM) will fall in slightly different places on that spectrum. Someone from CT could perhaps provide additional feedback on how the decision was reached.

One more point on using Google APIs for route planning: as I recall, One Bus Away was relying on those APIs at some point, but then due to API changes and/or pricing changes, the feature was dropped. I will not editorialize on how how that might translate to similar features being relied upon by other entities; it just seems like an interesting anecdote.

As long as there’s a human in the loop to actually talk to people and keep them informed when Google screws up.

They help keep people from driving onto the Edmonds ferry dock, for instance.

CT is adamant about using in-house products such as its Trip PLanner and MyBusFinder. The unfortunate downside is that, like any government agency, it’s years behind user trends. Customers are now used to using Google, OneBusAway, MoovIt, etc. CT should simply give up because, though well intentioned, the internal culture is just too slow to adapt to merging customer trends and should invest in strengthening ties with Google and OBA.

Old saying, but credible: “In order to successfully ask a question, you must already know most of the answer.” Can’t help it. This is the travel-planning version of either automatic cars or punishment cameras. Whichever’s worse.

Solution, same as for the plate-taping wars. Train, and pay skilled, talented, thoroughly knowledgeable people to answer questions and give explanations. Whose familiarity will let them tell you which stop you really, really don’t want to get off at. Well, maybe name a better one.

Wouldn’t surprise me if somebody already has a website.

Mark Dublin

I just played around with this beta version for a few minutes to check out some of the options. I wish CT would stop comingling the CT routes with the ST routes that they operate. (I believe they do the same thing in TripPlanner.) Just identify the route as an ST bus, since that’s what the rider is going to see pull up.

For years now I’ve suggested that people who ask me transit questions start participating in Sound Transit Blog, essentially (which doesn’t always mean COVID) trading experience of their own for information. Bruce, Martin, Brent, Oran and the rest…they all say Thanks.

I do not take CT for my trips. I tried the trip planner anyway. When I try programs such as this I always use the 3 of my most frequent transit trips. That way I can see if the program will work for me. I know the fastest and most convenient way to get from point A to point B on these 3 trips. I know what routes to take at at least 3 times a day to get to them and back. This is a combination of time and proximity. This particular planner only gives me a correct answer on 1 of those trips. But maybe I do not know how to use it. Plus, I live in Seattle. My routes do not include CT. But based on 20 minutes of playing around, it is not for me.

The Trip Planner is valid for all three Seattle-area counties. Try it for your own commute and/or places you often frequent on transit – no matter if it’s all Metro. You should send your feedback cuz CT needs all the customer input it can get during these times. If no one speaks up, then they’ll think they have a great tool.

Thank you. I will.

Comments are closed.