Help for Issaquah-Hobart Road

For years those living south of Issaquah have endured long lines of traffic along the Issaquah-Hobart road during the morning and afternoon commute.   It’s  congestion that will only get worse despite the thousands of dollars those living in the area have been and will continue to pay  into Sound Transit.  Since its unlikely additional highway lanes can be added the only way to reduce congestion is to make better use of the existing lanes by attracting more commuters to public transit

One way to do so is to create a 1000-stall “pay-to-park” lot along Hobart near the Cedar Grove junction.   Commuters would pay a monthly or annual fee of $10.00 per weekday but would ride free.  Those paying the fee would have assured access to a parking stall and priority access to seats on their choice of bus route.  The buses would provide riders with access to Wi-Fi for use during their commute.

The $10,000 daily fees would be used to cover some portion of the bus operating costs.  With Sound Transit’s normal 35% fare-box recovery, the pay-to-park fees could provide more than $28,000 worth of daily bus service.  Their 2018 budget projects bus operating costs of approximately $10.00 per mile, so the parking fees could fund 2800 miles of daily bus routes. 

A round trip from the Cedar Grove junction to 5^th & Union in Seattle is approximately 44 miles and about 32 miles to and from Bellevue T/C.   The 2800 miles of service could provide 36 round trips to and from both destinations, or 18 round trips every morning and afternoon. 

For three hours every morning and afternoon a bus could be routed every 5 minutes from the pay-to-park either into and out of Seattle or to and from Bellevue T/C.  The routes into Seattle would be non-stop to one or two designated drop off locations on 4^th Ave.  The afternoon routes would be limited to a single pick-up point to assure access for those paying for parking.   Assuming each bus could accommodate 100 riders, the two routes would provide up to 3600 commuters with access to public transit.   

While the 1000 that paid for parking would have priority for their preferred routes, an additional 2600 commuters could ride free.   Commuters could be dropped off and carpoolers could share the cost of parking and use of priority access.  Others could set up local routes to and from pay-to-park collecting small fees for those wanting access to free buses.  Those that paid for parking would have  priority access to seats enabling them to use Wi-Fi on the bus during commute.   Those unable to find seats would still benefit from the free ride though might not be able to use Wi-Fi.     

While the buses would still face Hobart Rd congestion, replacing up to 1200 cars with 12 buses per hour would go a long ways towards reducing traffic to the 2000 car-per-hour limit needed to achieve 45 mph.   Those paying for parking, those riding for free, as well as those unable to use the bus routes into Seattle or Bellevue T/C would benefit from the reduced congestion.

It's something that could be done in 2-3 years for a fraction of the money residents in the area have already paid into Sound Transit.  Instead they'll be forced to continue to pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars each year to fund policies that do nothing to ease congestion.   Commuters using other roads in the Sound Transit service area facing similar problems could also benefit from pay-to-park lots sized to their needs. 

Sound Transit needs to recognize they should use taxes collected from residents in those areas to increase access to public transit with pay-to-park lots rather than a light rail spine most will never use.