Sound Transit's Bifurcated Approach to Parking

The June 8^th Seattle Times Traffic Lab article “Sound Transit bets $350M on 3 new parking garages” exemplifies the Sound Transit Board’s “bifurcated” approach to providing access to public transit.  CEO Julie Timm says the line offers a true alternative to driving in traffic that residents will use.  That when ridership returns parking will be available.  

 

The $350M for the 1482 additional stalls along with the $88M spent on adding 510 stalls at the recently opened Puyallup Station totals $438M for 1992 stalls or $220,000 per stall for Sounder commuters.

 

Yet when it comes to access to light rail Sound Transit has a different approach.  They initially purposely neglected to add parking for access in Seattle, attempting to use light rail to attract commuters to live withing walking distance of stations. However, the ST3 proposed extensions required “motorized access” for up to 70% of riders.

 

A November 2016 Seattle Times article reported the 51 existing park and ride facilities next to express bus or trains stations in Snohomish, King, and Pierce County were already 95% full of 19,448 cars.   (The WSDOT hasn’t updated the Park and Ride Inventory showing “Location, Capacity, and In Use%” for the three-county area since Oct-Dec 2016.)

 

Yet Sound Transit has refused to add significant parking for light rail access.  In February 2018 they implemented a “Transit System Access Policy” to “manage demand” at existing parking. It reduced access to parking for early commuters by allowing late arrivers to pay to reserve stalls.

 

A May 5^th, 2022, video showed Sound Transit’s System Access Policy Update for light rail was to “manage parking demand”: maximize efficient use of available transit parking resources”.  Charts detailed the new System Access Policy for “Parking Management” established tools to manage parking including “Permits, Fees, Technology”

 

Yet an Oct 2021 debut of the Northgate Extension had already demonstrated Sound Transit’s “lack of parking” problem.  They had predicted the Link’s three stations would attract 41,000 to 49,000 daily riders by 2022.  Rather than add parking for access they chose to force bus riders currently using the stalls to transfer to light rail for the commute into and out of Seattle.  

 

While they’ve never released the Quarterly Service Provided Performance Reports that would have showed the actual results, the best indication was 8000 riders daily. Even bus riders forced to ride light rail didn’t increase ridership to more than a fraction of projections. A clear indication of the need for additional parking.   

 

The Lynnwood extension debut in 2024 will be the next demonstration of the light rail spine’s need for additional parking.  Sound Transit has projected between 37,000 to 57,000 riders for the extension intending to add riders by using it to replace ST350 and Snohomish Community Bus routes into Seattle.  

 

The extension includes adding “approximately 500 new spaces” at the Lynnwood Transit Center and the Shoreline North/185^th and Shoreline South/148^th stations.  It’s unclear what the costs were but the largest additional expenditure to provide access to the Link is the $240M planned for the NE 130^th St Infill Station. It doesn’t have parking and isn’t finished until 2026, two years after service begins.

 

The bottom line is Sound Transit approach to provide parking for access includes spending $350M for when Sounder riders “return and need it” and $240M for an “infill station” on Lynnwood Link that won’t be available until two years after Link debuts and won’t have parking when it does. They delay adding parking on Everett extension until 2046, nine years after the extension to Everett.

 

Like the Northgate extension, the Lynnwood extension debut will demonstrate the lack of parking for access limits ridership to a fraction of the 37,000 to 57,000 voters were promised.  It’s also another demonstration extending light rail does nothing to increase capacity it only increases operating costs.  That replacing bus routes reduces transit capacity and that riders added will reduce access for current commuters.

 

Thus, Sound Transit’s bifurcated approach to parking is just part of its problem.