wsdot-mcp-server

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

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Overview

Washington State transportation data from the WSDOT Traveler API and the WSF Ferry API. Query mountain pass and highway conditions, search alerts and cameras, and track ferry schedules, vessel locations, and terminal space from any MCP client. Runs as a stdio process, a local Streamable HTTP server, or the public hosted endpoint above.

Tools

Tool	Description
wsdot_get_mountain_passes	Current conditions for all WA mountain passes: status, road condition, traction laws, temperature, elevation.
wsdot_search_alerts	Active highway alerts — incidents, construction, closures — filterable by state route, WSDOT region, and milepost range.
wsdot_get_travel_times	Current vs. average travel times for named WA highway corridors (I-5, I-90, SR 520, etc.) with congestion delay.
wsdot_get_toll_rates	Dynamic toll rates for WA express lanes and tolled facilities — SR 99, SR 167 HOT, I-405 Express, SR 509, SR 520 — filterable by route.
wsdot_get_border_waits	Current vehicle wait times at all WA/Canada land border crossings.
wsdot_search_cameras	Highway camera metadata and image URLs, filterable by state route, region, milepost range, and title words.
wsdot_get_ferry_terminals	All WSF ferry terminals with numeric IDs needed for schedule and space lookups, plus coordinates.
wsdot_get_ferry_routes	WSF routes operating on a given date — route ID, abbreviation, description, and the terminal pairs each serves, for route discovery, schedule lookups, and ferry-alert cross-reference.
wsdot_get_ferry_schedule	Departure times for a specific WSF route — today-remaining or full-day future mode — with each sailing's vessel, loading rule, and notes.
wsdot_get_vessel_locations	Real-time AIS positions, speed, heading, ETA, and dock status for all active WSF vessels.
wsdot_get_terminal_space	Drive-up and reservable vehicle space available at WSF terminals for upcoming sailings.
wsdot_get_ferry_alerts	Active WSF service disruptions and bulletins with impacted route IDs.

Capability reference

wsdot_get_mountain_passes tool

• No input — current conditions for all 16 WA mountain passes (Snoqualmie, Stevens, White, Blewett, Cayuse, and others) in one call
• Each pass carries road condition, weather, temperature, elevation, and up to two directional traction/travel restrictions

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wsdot_search_alerts tool

• Optional stateRoute, region (Northwest, Olympic, Southwest, South Central, North Central, Eastern), and startMilepost / endMilepost — an alert matches when its extent overlaps the range; omit all for every statewide alert. Ordered by alertId, paged (default 20, max 500)
• An unknown region fails as invalid_region and a start above the end as invalid_milepost_range, each with a recovery hint

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wsdot_get_travel_times tool

• Optional route — a route ("I-5", "SR 520") returns every corridor measured on it, any other text matches corridor names ("Everett"); paged (default 50, max 500)
• Each corridor reports current and average minutes — current above average means congestion, and the delta is the delay. A reversible express-lane corridor closed in the queried direction omits its figures rather than reporting zero

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wsdot_get_toll_rates tool

• Covers SR 99 (WSDOT Tunnel), SR 167 HOT Lanes, I-405 Express Lanes, the SR 509 tolled segment, and the SR 520 Bridge. Optional stateRoute matches the posted designation ("I-405", "SR 520"); a route with no tolled facility returns an empty page whose notice names the tolled routes. Paged (default 50, max 500)
• Each row leads with its startLocationName → endLocationName segment. stateRoute is the feed's bare zero-padded number ("099") and travelDirection the feed's code, which SR 99, SR 509, and SR 520 fix per facility — read direction from the segment's ends

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wsdot_get_border_waits tool

• No input — eleven lane entries in crossings[] across I-5 (Peace Arch), SR 543 (Pacific Highway), SR 539 (Lynden), and SR 9 (Sumas): a general-purpose and a Nexus lane at each, plus truck lanes at SR 539 and SR 543
• crossingName is a route code (I5, SR543Trucks) and location.description the readable name; a lane with no current data omits waitTimeInMinutes

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wsdot_search_cameras tool

• Optional stateRoute, region code (NW, SW, OL, ER, SC, NC, OS for the Oregon TripCheck cameras, WA for airport cameras), startMilepost / endMilepost, and titleContains (every word, any order). Ordered by cameraId, paged (default 50, max 500)
• Returns metadata and image URLs, not image bytes (camera images are copyright WSDOT). An unknown region fails as invalid_region and a reversed range as invalid_milepost_range

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wsdot_get_ferry_terminals tool

• No input — all 20 WSF terminals, each with its numeric ID, abbreviation, and latitude/longitude
• Resolves names ("Bainbridge Island", "Seattle") to the IDs wsdot_get_ferry_schedule and wsdot_get_terminal_space take

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wsdot_get_ferry_routes tool

• Optional tripDate (YYYY-MM-DD, default today); a date outside the range WSF has published fails as invalid_date stating that range
• Each route carries its ID (the impactedRouteIds of wsdot_get_ferry_alerts), abbreviation, description, and terminalPairs — the departing → arriving pairs wsdot_get_ferry_schedule accepts that day

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wsdot_get_ferry_schedule tool

• Requires departingTerminalId and arrivingTerminalId (a pair from terminalPairs on wsdot_get_ferry_routes); optional tripDate (default today) and remainingOnly (future departures only, today only)
• Each sailing carries departureTime / arrivalTime in ISO 8601 UTC (tripDate is the Pacific service day), vesselId, loadingRule, and indexes into the pair's annotations. There is no cancellation flag — WSF drops a cancelled sailing, so check wsdot_get_ferry_alerts
• A pair with no schedule that day fails as invalid_terminal_pair and a date with none as invalid_date, never as an empty schedule

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wsdot_get_vessel_locations tool

• No input — position, speed, heading, ETA, and dock status for every active WSF vessel
• Positions may lag 30–60 seconds; many fields are absent for a vessel not in service, and one between assignments reports opRouteAbbrev as none reported

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wsdot_get_terminal_space tool

• Optional departingTerminalId (from wsdot_get_ferry_terminals), else every terminal; paged by terminal (default 5, max 20), with every sailing of a returned terminal included
• driveUpSpaceCount is the key field — zero means the drive-up lane is full, and an oversubscribed sailing's negative upstream count floors to zero. arrivingTerminalIds chains into wsdot_get_ferry_schedule

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wsdot_get_ferry_alerts tool

• No input — active WSF disruptions, delays, and bulletins, each with alertTitle, a one-line alertDescription, and the full bulletinText (detail such as a replacement sailing appears only in the body)
• impactedRouteIds map to wsdot_get_ferry_routes; affectsAllRoutes: true marks a fleet-wide alert, whose empty route list then means every route

Features

Built on @cyanheads/mcp-ts-core: stdio and Streamable HTTP transports, pluggable auth (none / jwt / oauth), swappable storage (in-memory, filesystem, Supabase, Cloudflare KV/R2/D1), structured logging with optional OpenTelemetry tracing.

WSDOT-specific:

• Dual API integration — WSDOT Traffic API and WSF Ferry API share a single WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE
• Cross-tool linking built into tool descriptions — ferry tools point to wsdot_get_ferry_terminals / wsdot_get_ferry_routes for ID resolution before a lookup
• Normalized response shapes across both APIs — sparse upstream fields surface as optional rather than omitted or defaulted
• Stable pagination — the alert and camera feeds return the same set in more than one row order upstream, so results are sorted by ID to keep a given offset reproducible
• Paged list tools take offset / limit, and a page also ends early at a 24,000-byte response budget, with the notice naming the next offset
• Route filters take the forms people write — "I-90", "90", "090", "SR 520" — and every text filter accepts at most 200 characters

Agent-friendly output:

• Typed failure — invalid_access_code and api_unavailable errors carry an explicit recovery hint distinguishing configuration faults from transient upstream ones
• driveUpSpaceCount: 0 and congestion delta fields (delayInMinutes) give agents actionable signal without string parsing
• Plain text from HTML — alert descriptions, sailing notes, and bulletins arrive from upstream as HTML and are returned as text, with links inline as link text (url)
• Partial data preserved — sparse upstream payloads surface null/undefined rather than synthetic defaults (e.g. an omitted waitTimeInMinutes, an absent arrivalTime)
• 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; a blank or whitespace-only upstream string is absent from both, and a populated one arrives trimmed

Getting started

Public Hosted Instance

A public instance is available at https://wsdot.caseyjhand.com/mcp — no installation required. Point any MCP client at it via Streamable HTTP:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "wsdot-mcp-server": {
      "type": "streamable-http",
      "url": "https://wsdot.caseyjhand.com/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Self-Hosted / Local

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 v1.4.0 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:

Variable	Description	Default
WSDOT_ACCESS_CODE	Required. WSDOT Traveler API access code. Register at wsdot.wa.gov/Traffic/api/.	—
MCP_TRANSPORT_TYPE	Transport: stdio or http.	stdio
MCP_HTTP_PORT	HTTP server port.	3010
MCP_HTTP_HOST	HTTP server hostname.	127.0.0.1
MCP_HTTP_ENDPOINT_PATH	HTTP endpoint path.	/mcp
MCP_PUBLIC_URL	Public origin for TLS-terminating reverse-proxy deployments.	—
MCP_SESSION_MODE	Session handling: auto, stateful, or stateless. The schema default auto resolves to stateful; this server sets stateless explicitly.	stateless
MCP_AUTH_MODE	Authentication: none, jwt, or oauth.	none
MCP_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (debug, info, notice, warning, error).	info
LOGS_DIR	Directory for log files (Node.js only).	<project-root>/logs
STORAGE_PROVIDER_TYPE	Storage backend: in-memory, filesystem, supabase, cloudflare-kv/r2/d1.	in-memory
LOG_TOOL_FAILURE_PAYLOADS	Log each failed tool call's arguments and result (key-name redaction only).	false
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry instrumentation (spans, metrics, completion logs).	false
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	OTLP base URL; traces go to /v1/traces, metrics to /v1/metrics.	—
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_LOGS_ENDPOINT	Opt-in OTLP log export; the base endpoint never enables it.	—

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

Directory	Purpose
src/index.ts	createApp() entry point — registers all 12 tools and initializes services.
src/config	Server-specific environment variable parsing and validation with Zod.
src/mcp-server/tools	Tool definitions (*.tool.ts) — 6 traffic tools, 6 ferry tools.
src/services/traffic	WSDOT Traffic API service (mountain passes, alerts, travel times, toll rates, border waits, cameras).
src/services/ferry	WSF Ferry API service (terminals, routes, schedule, vessel locations, space, alerts).
tests/	Unit and integration tests, mirroring the src/ 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 are welcome. Run checks and tests before submitting:

bun run devcheck
bun run test

License

Apache-2.0 — see LICENSE for details.