Mercer Island Needs Pay-to-Park, Not Lyft

The March 29^th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article describing Sound Transit plans to subsidize Lyft connections to the Mercer Island T/C is another result of Sound Transit’s decision to “manage demand” at existing P&R lots rather than to ”increase parking supply”.   Last month their “manage-demand” approach entailed allowing solo-drivers reserve stalls at existing P&Rs.  It’s unlikely they will proceed with widespread use of that plan since those wanting to reserve parking for later commutes will fill all the available parking, eliminating access for those currently using P&R.

Todd Kelsey, Lyft’s general manager for the Northwest suggested the Mercer Island adopt the subsidized “ride hail” approach in 2015.  Lyft and Uber each contributed $10,000 towards the up to $226,900 Sound Transit will give Mercer Island to subsidize the ride-hail fares.  One can understand why they did so claiming “In the six-month pilot, we expect it to be thousands of rides.”   Especially since Sound Transit is considering “At least 26 other park and ride facilities in King County are chronically full, so these kinds of arrangements might spread”. 

The discounted rides begin April 23. Islanders can catch a car to or from their transit hub for $2 the first three months. During months four to six, the rate is $2 per rider for a group ride, $5 per solo ride.  It’s unclear how many rides the $226,900 will subsidize or what fares will be without subsidies.  Mercer Island Mayer Debbie Berlin “embraced the opportunity to investigate the future of transportation with this pilot project”.  Ross Freeman, city sustainability manager, claimed the “Mercer Island City Council Members didn’t fret about subsidizing ride-hailing markets, (Presumably unsubsidized ride-hailing is also ok.)

However, it’s not clear why Mercer Island commuters will be enamored with the idea of paying probably $10 or more to ride to and from their T/C.  They’ve already been forced to pay, likely more than most, increased car tab and property taxes to fund ST3.  Also, many won't welcome waiting for Lyft or Uber to pick them up at home or the hassle of waiting with hundreds of commuters at the T/C attempting to “hail a ride” home.

Mercer Island commuters deserve better from their city leaders.  The council could require Sound Transit allow Islanders the opportunity to reserve a parking stall at the Mercer Island T/C, similar to what they’d proposed in February.  Especially since it was Sound Transit’s closure of the South Bellevue P&R that forced many I-90 corridor commuters to use their T/C. 

The most absurd rational for the “ride hail” approach is the Traffic Lab claim “Taxpayers may benefit, if transit agencies avoid parking-structure expansions that can cost around $100,000 a space".  They profess concerns about tax payers having to pay to construct parking yet ignore Sound Transit plans to spend $54 billion of their tax money on light rail extensions they’ve already conceded won’t reduce congestion.

The best option would be for the council to “persuade” Sound Transit to construct a 1000-stall Pay-to-park lot at their Island Crest Park.   The ability to use existing space for parking would likely substantially reduce the costs.  Residents could pay a monthly or annual fee of $10 per weekday to reserve a space.  The $10,000 daily fees would be used to cover Sound Transit’s express bus operating costs allowing others to ride free.

Rather than providing access to T/C, the buses could provide express routes into Seattle and Bellevue with round trips to 4^th and University, or Bellevue T/C, both approximately 16 miles.  Sound Transit budgets bus operating costs as ~$10 per mile or $160 per round trip.  $56 in fares per trip would provide Sound Transit’s typical 35% of operating costs.   Thus the $10,000 could cover 178 round trips or 89 morning and afternoon commutes. 

A typical 40-ft bus can accommodate up to 75 sitting and standing riders.  The 89 round trips each morning and afternoon would provide capacity for 6675 commuters to and from the two destinations.  Those paying the tolls would have priority access to the bus route of their choice, however an additional 5675 could ride free, exceeding likely demand.   Their only need being to get to and from the Pay-to-Park lot.

The trips could be scheduled to meet demand with buses departing every 5 minutes to one of the two destinations during peak commute with 10-minute intervals during off-peak.  The afternoon return schedules would be similar.  Drop-offs in Seattle would be limited to one or two designated locations for each route but pick ups will be limited to one location to assure those paying for parking would have access to their preferred routes.

Pay-to-Park will be especially useful to Mercer Island commuters as congestion increases on bridge. Sound Transit intends to use East Link to replace many of the I-90 corridor bus routes reducing Islander access to buses.  East Link's limited capacity, at least during peak commute, will likely be full when they arrive at Mercer Island Station.  Mercer Island can surely justify having Sound Transit acquire a few more buses since there would be no East Link without their approval of the Shoreline and Construction permits that allowed it to proceed.