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SR 99 tunnel marks one-year anniversary and more than a million monthly drivers

Seattle's SR 99 tunnel opened to the public on Feb. 4, 2019.

February 4 marks one year since the SR 99 tunnel under downtown Seattle officially opened to traffic, and the numbers are in. 

Over one million passengers ride through the tunnel each month on average, even though the number of trips has decreased by 25% since tolling started in November of 2019. 

Before tolling, an average of 77,000 people traveled through SR 99 tunnel each day. Now, that number is about 57,000.

While it might be a drop, SDOT says they're happy with the numbers, expecting a 35-50% decrease once customers had to pay for their trip. Peak travel time statistics may also be misleading, as data has shown their volumes sometimes meets or exceeds pre-toll data.

Credit: WSDOT
A traffic volume visualization from Nov, 2019 illustrates busy average times in the SR 99 tunnel.

83% of cars have Good To Go passes, which automatically charges the tunnel toll to an online account. Good to Go also gives drivers an incentive by lowering toll rates during peak hours.

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