I am interested in what they call the "fare-free" zone around 4th Street I think it was.
I assume you are talking about the Ride Free Zone.
Here is the Metro web page that explains it. Basically, between 6 in the morning and 7 in the evening, you can ride any bus in downtown Seattle for free.
The southern boundary of the Ride Free Zone is Jackson Street, which is the street at the northern edge of King Street Station. So, if you are staying at a hotel in downtown Seattle, you can walk over to the stop on 4th Avenue just south of Jackson Street, or the stop on 1st Avenue at Jackson Street (not sure if that stop is north or south of Jackson), and hop on any northbound bus and ride for free into downtown. Or, you can walk to the stop on the north side of Jackson just east of 4th and, if my memory is correct, those buses wind up running up 3rd Avenue. Or, you can walk over to the International District Station in the
Transit Tunnel, entrances to which are found along 5th Avenue just south of Jackson, and ride in the tunnel into downtown. (The trains that run through the tunnel do not participate in Ride Free, only the buses.)
The Metro web site has a
Trip Planner tool to help you figure out what bus you would want to be on and where to catch it.
Any bus stop that is within the Ride Free Zone has a Ride Free badge on it. And when you get on a bus that is operating Ride Free there will be a sign to that effect on the fare box. (0.1 percent of the time the driver forgets to change the sign, in which case, ask him if he's Ride Free.)
There are four distinct transit organizations that operate on the streets of downtown Seattle: Metro, Sound Transit, Pierce County Transit, and Community Transit. I am not exactly sure if the latter two participate in the Ride Free program, but I know the first two do. But you would only see Pierce County Transit and Community Transit buses during weekday rush hour times, as they run commuters from and to Pierce County and Snohomish County.
Seattle's buses don't have a lot of room for baggage, but if you were carrying a lot of baggage, you probably wouldn't be taking the bus from the train station, anyway; you'd take a taxi.
The Space Needle is about five blocks north of the northern end of the Ride Free Zone.
Since no fares are collected downtown when Ride Free service is in effect, it does make fare collection outside the Ride Free Zone a little complicated for the uninitiated: You pay when you get on the bus if you are heading downtown, you pay when you get OFF the bus if you are heading away from downtown, and you pay when you get on the bus if your route doesn't go through downtown at all. After 7 p.m., you pay when you get on the bus no matter where you are. On a bus operating outside of the Ride Free Zone, the sign on the fare box will show the fare and say "Pay as you enter" or "Pay as you leave," whichever applies.