wsdot-mcp-server

Public Hosted Server: https://wsdot.caseyjhand.com/mcp

Tools

12 tools split across two domains — traffic (WSDOT Traveler API) and ferries (WSF Ferry API):

wsdot_get_mountain_passes

Current road conditions for all WA mountain passes.

• Covers all 16 passes: Snoqualmie, Stevens, White, Blewett, Cayuse, and others

• Fields include status (Open/Closed/Caution), road surface, active traction law, temperature, and elevation

• Use for "is the pass open?", traction law checks, or winter driving planning

wsdot_search_alerts

Active WA highway alerts — incidents, construction, closures, restrictions.

• Filter by state route — natural forms all work: "I-90", "90", "090", or "SR 520" / "520"

• Filter by WSDOT region: Northwest, Olympic, Southwest, South Central, North Central, Eastern

• Filter by milepost range to scope to a corridor — an alert matches when its extent overlaps the range, so a closure that spans the boundary is returned

• Omit all filters to return all current statewide alerts

• Descriptions are plain text — upstream authors them with markup, and a link is rendered inline as link text (url) so the destination survives

• Results are ordered by alertId and paged (default 50, max 500) — pass offset/limit to page through the full statewide set; the notice reports the next offset. Upstream returns the same alert set in more than one row order, so the ordering is imposed here to keep a given offset reproducible

wsdot_get_travel_times

Current vs. average travel times for named WA highway corridors.

• Covers I-5, I-90, SR 520, SR 99, I-405, SR 167, and others

• Filter by route ("I-5", "5", "SR 520") to get every corridor measured on it, or by any text to match corridor names ("Everett")

• When current time exceeds average, the corridor is congested; the delta is the delay

• Reversible express-lane corridors report no travel time while closed in the queried direction — those figures are omitted rather than reported as zero minutes

• Results are paged (default 50, max 500) — pass offset/limit to page through the full statewide set; the notice reports the next offset

wsdot_get_toll_rates

Current dynamic toll rates for WA tolled facilities.

• SR 99 (WSDOT Tunnel), SR 167 HOT Lanes, I-405 Express Lanes, the SR 509 tolled segment, and the SR 520 Bridge

• Rates are time-banded and change dynamically based on traffic conditions

• stateRoute is a bare, zero-padded route number ("099", "405") with no route type; the rendered text resolves the posted designation, so I-405 reads as I-405 rather than SR 405

• Each entry leads with its readable startLocationName → endLocationName segment; the opaque upstream trip key stays available as tripName

• Results are paged (default 50, max 500) — pass offset/limit to page through the full statewide set; the notice reports the next offset

wsdot_get_border_waits

Current vehicle wait times at WA/Canada land border crossings.

• Covers I-5 (Peace Arch, Blaine), SR 543 (Pacific Highway, Blaine), SR 539 (Lynden), and SR 9 (Sumas)

• Each crossing reports a general-purpose lane and a Nexus lane; SR 539 adds a truck lane and SR 543 adds truck and FAST truck lanes — eleven entries in crossings[], one per lane

• crossingName is a route code (e.g. I5, SR543Trucks); location.description holds the readable name

• Wait times in minutes; updateTime is ISO 8601. A crossing reporting no current data is still returned — only waitTimeInMinutes is omitted, and the rendered text reads Not available

wsdot_search_cameras

WSDOT highway camera metadata and image URLs.

• Filter by state route ("I-90", "90", "SR 520", or "520" all work), WSDOT region, or milepost range

• Camera road names carry a route-type prefix, so "SR 26" excludes US 26 and "US 97" excludes US 97A; a bare "26" returns both

• Returns metadata and image URLs — camera images are copyright WSDOT, not fetched as bytes

• Results are ordered by cameraId and paged (default 50, max 500) — pass offset/limit to page through the full statewide set; the notice reports the next offset. Upstream returns the same camera set in more than one row order, so the ordering is imposed here to keep a given offset reproducible

wsdot_get_ferry_terminals

All WSF ferry terminals with numeric IDs.

• 20 terminals; the list rarely changes

• Call this first to resolve human-readable names (e.g. "Bainbridge Island", "Seattle", "Kingston") to the numeric IDs required by wsdot_get_ferry_schedule and wsdot_get_terminal_space

wsdot_get_ferry_routes

WSF ferry routes operating on a given date.

• Returns each route's ID, abbreviation, and description

• Route IDs correspond to impactedRouteIds in wsdot_get_ferry_alerts — use this tool to resolve alert route IDs to route names

• Use to discover which routes are running; for the numeric terminal IDs that schedule and space lookups need, call wsdot_get_ferry_terminals

wsdot_get_ferry_schedule

Departure times for a specific WSF ferry route.

• Requires numeric terminal IDs — use wsdot_get_ferry_terminals first

• remainingOnly: true returns only future departures for today (useful for "next ferry" queries)

• For future dates, all sailings for that day are returned

• departureTime and arrivalTime are ISO 8601 UTC, while tripDate is the Pacific service day — an evening sailing therefore carries the following UTC calendar date and will not match tripDate. Convert to America/Los_Angeles before quoting a clock time

• arrivalTime is populated on some routes and absent on others

• No cancellation status — WSF drops a cancelled sailing from the schedule rather than flagging it, so a listed sailing is not confirmation it will run; check wsdot_get_ferry_alerts, which reports disruptions at route level

wsdot_get_vessel_locations

Real-time AIS positions for all active WSF vessels.

• Fields include position, speed, heading, ETA, and dock status

• Use for "where is the ferry now?" or checking if a specific vessel is in service

• Position data may lag 30–60 seconds; many fields are null for vessels not currently operating

• Coordinates render at full upstream AIS precision — no rounding, so both response surfaces report the same position

• A vessel between assignments reports an empty opRouteAbbrev, rendered as none reported rather than omitted

wsdot_get_terminal_space

Real-time vehicle space availability at WSF terminals for upcoming sailings.

• driveUpSpaceCount is the key field — zero means the drive-up lane is full. Oversubscribed sailings report a negative count upstream; it is floored to zero so the value never reads as available space

• arrivingTerminalIds lists the terminals a sailing serves and chains straight into wsdot_get_ferry_schedule; itineraryLabel is a display string that may name several stops, not a single destination

• Filter to a specific terminal by ID (from wsdot_get_ferry_terminals)

• Use for "will I make the ferry?" or "how full is the next sailing?" queries

• Results are paged by terminal (default 5, max 20) — offset/limit select whole terminals and totalCount counts matching terminals, not sailings; every sailing of a returned terminal is included, so page size varies with how many departures each terminal carries

wsdot_get_ferry_alerts

Active WSF ferry service disruptions, delays, and bulletins.

• Each alert carries the bulletin's alertTitle, its one-line alertDescription, and the full bulletinText — detail such as a replacement sailing appears only in the body

• bulletinText is plain text: upstream authors it as HTML, and a link is rendered inline as link text (url)

• Each alert includes impactedRouteIds — cross-reference with wsdot_get_ferry_routes to map route IDs to names

• affectsAllRoutes: true marks a fleet-wide alert, which need not enumerate routes — an empty impactedRouteIds then means every route rather than none

Related MCP server: @cyanheads/onebusaway-mcp-server

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core:

• Declarative tool definitions — single file per tool, framework handles registration and validation

• Unified error handling across all tools

• Pluggable auth (none, jwt, oauth)

• Swappable storage backends: in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1

• Structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing

• STDIO and Streamable HTTP transports

WSDOT-specific:

• Dual API integration — WSDOT Traffic API and WSF Ferry API from a single access code

• Retry, timeout, and HTML-detection guards on all upstream requests

• Normalized response shapes across both APIs — sparse upstream fields surfaced as optional rather than omitted

Agent-friendly output:

• Cross-tool linking built into descriptions — ferry tools document which tool to call first for terminal and route ID resolution

• driveUpSpaceCount: 0 and congestion delta fields give agents actionable signal without string parsing

• Partial data preserved — sparse upstream payloads surface null/undefined rather than synthetic defaults

• content[] and structuredContent carry the same values, not just the same fields — a false flag, an empty list, and one populated half of a coordinate pair all render rather than dropping out of the markdown surface that some clients read

Getting started

Add the following to your MCP client configuration file. You'll need a WSDOT Traveler API access code — register at wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/api/.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wsdot-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "bunx",
      "args": ["@cyanheads/wsdot-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE": "your-access-code"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with npx (no Bun required):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wsdot-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@cyanheads/wsdot-mcp-server@latest"],
      "env": {
        "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE": "stdio",
        "MCP_LOG_LEVEL": "info",
        "WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE": "your-access-code"
      }
    }
  }
}

Or with Docker:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wsdot-mcp-server": {
      "type": "stdio",
      "command": "docker",
      "args": [
        "run", "-i", "--rm",
        "-e", "MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=stdio",
        "-e", "WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE=your-access-code",
        "ghcr.io/cyanheads/wsdot-mcp-server:latest"
      ]
    }
  }
}

For Streamable HTTP, set the transport and start the server:

MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE=http MCP_HTTP_PORT=3010 WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE=your-access-code bun run start:http
# Server listens at http://localhost:3010/mcp

Prerequisites

• Bun v1.3.0 or higher (or Node.js v24+).

• A WSDOT Traveler API access code. Register at wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/api/ — registration is free.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/cyanheads/wsdot-mcp-server.git

2. Navigate into the directory:

cd wsdot-mcp-server

3. Install dependencies:

bun install

4. Configure environment:

cp .env.example .env
# edit .env and set WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE

Configuration

All configuration is validated at startup via Zod schemas in src/config/server-config.ts. Key environment variables:

See .env.example for the full list of optional overrides.

Running the server

Local development

• Build and run:

  # One-time build
  bun run rebuild
  
  # Run the built server
  bun run start:stdio
  # or
  bun run start:http

• Run checks and tests:

  bun run devcheck   # Lint, format, typecheck, security
  bun run test       # Vitest test suite
  bun run lint:mcp   # Validate MCP definitions against spec

Docker

docker build -t wsdot-mcp-server .
docker run --rm -e WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE=your-access-code -p 3010:3010 wsdot-mcp-server

The Dockerfile defaults to HTTP transport, stateless session mode, and logs to /var/log/wsdot-mcp-server. OpenTelemetry peer dependencies are installed by default — build with --build-arg OTEL_ENABLED=false to omit them.

Project structure

Development guide

See CLAUDE.md for development guidelines and architectural rules. The short version:

• Handlers throw, framework catches — no try/catch in tool logic

• Use ctx.log for request-scoped logging, ctx.state for tenant-scoped storage

• Register new tools in the createApp() arrays in src/index.ts

• Wrap external API calls: validate raw → normalize to domain type → return output schema; never fabricate missing fields

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.