Parking at Transit Stations
Sunday, August 25, 2024
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| Mountlake Terrace parking structure November 2020 It is one of the larger garages Photo courtesy Forma Construction |
Lynnwood Link (now called 1 Link) stations will open on August 30, 2024.
Lynnwood, Mountlake Terrace, Shoreline North/185th, Shoreline South/148th all have parking garages which hold up to 500 cars. Shoreline North has 360 spaces, Shoreline South has 500.
The Sound Transit Board adopted a new parking policy earlier in March of this year. This slide deck outlines what the agency is looking to begin implementing at some time in 2025 and fully by 2026.
People are encouraged to find different modes of transportation to the light rail stations as parking is finite.
Whether you are being dropped off by a friend or taking a ride share and dropped off in the designated areas at the stations, riding transit to the stations, biking, walking or any other means.
The majority of riders on light rail do not park and ride.
One four car train set can fit between 600 - 800 people depending on the makeup of people sitting and standing.
So when the garage is full, that accounts for roughly one full train. The rest of the riders on our system use different means to get to and from the stations. That is one reason why Sound Transit has worked so closely with our transit partners King County Metro and Community Transit in their service plan changes, to maximize the efficiency of the system as a region.
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10 comments:
I expect to see parking enforcement in my neighborhood.
If you live in the Meridian Park neighborhood, what bus service or Shuttle is designed to quickly get you to the light rail stations? Am I missing something?
King county metro has new routes that start Sept 14th. https://kingcounty.gov/en/dept/metro/programs-and-projects/lynnwood-link-connections
For Meridian Park, looks like the 333, 345, 346, and 348 that go through that area.
The bus routes will be changing on September 14. Prior to the service change, Meridian Park residents can either take route 348 directly to the Shoreline North/185th station or take route 346 to N 145th St and then walk about 15 minutes to the Shoreline South/148th station. After the September 14 service change, routes 333, 345, and 346 will all stop at the Shoreline South/148th station.
Another practical option for Meridian Park residents is to bike or use a scooter. All locations in the neighborhood are within a 15 minute ride of a station, and there are bike racks and bike lockers at both stations.
If they had built this line intelligently, there would have been abundant parking to encourage people in SFHs to drive their little electric cars to the station, park all day, and take the train into the office. But because they decided to build less parking than will be needed and ration it by making people pay, lots of people on the fence about transit will instead continue to drive directly to work.
Public transit to the last mile just doesn't work for the vast majority of homeowners.
Exactly
FYI, most riders don't bike in fall and winter do to the weather. Most riders do drive and park because we will lose time in the day waiting for a bus or folks need to pick up kids after work.
"Hmm, parking is limited. Let's make sure that rich people and people on expense accounts get it first. The rest can walk." Same logic that led to the pointless toll lanes on the 405. Literally NOTHING to do with easing congestion.
Just a note that the 4-car train capacity of 600-800 assumes the majority of riders are standing which is uncomfortable for a large segment of the population. The number of seats per car is around 70 at most.
The parking is already hard to get, and stations are too few and far between to work for many people if parking isn't available. Glad to see it's so popular, but it already has become challenging.
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