City Guides
Getting Around Seattle & the Eastside
Seattle is really two cities: the downtown core and the Eastside tech corridor — Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland — with Lake Washington in between. Your whole transportation experience comes down to when you cross it.
The bridge rule
Two floating bridges — the 520 and I-90 — carry everything between the halves. Midday they're a breeze; at the wrong hour they're parking lots with a view of the lake. Locals plan meetings around crossings the way they plan around the rain: with quiet fatalism and good timing.
The runs that matter
- Sea-Tac → downtown — 25–40 minutes; the light rail is decent solo, a car wins with luggage or colleagues
- Sea-Tac → Bellevue/Redmond — 30–50 minutes; no direct rail, this is car territory
- Campus-to-campus days — investor and partner visits often hit both sides of the lake; an hourly charter absorbs the bridge variance
Rain reality: Seattle drizzle barely slows traffic — but the first real downpour of fall reliably breaks it. Book ahead in October.
Flat rates across the Sound at koastride.com.