[Sculpin]

For years now, the light rail line along I-5 had its northern terminus at Husky Stadium. The route planners made no accommodation for parking, so clearly the intent was to make the location useful to UW students but not to commuters. Whatever. I would love to be able to use light rail! So I was looking forward to the stations opening farther north, and the day finally came on October 2, 2021. But could I actually use it? My wife and I drove down there at 10 am on Tuesday to see if we could find parking. Nope. Numerous large garages opened with free parking for commuters. Every one of the now thousands of parking spaces was full with many cars circling. Meanwhile, some changes were made to the mall parking areas so that they cannot be used. Some now charge $15 for 2-4 hours. Others require validation of purchase in the mall. Sure, I get it, the parking is there for commuters and I'm just a retired guy. But still, it is frustrating to have this wonderful system and not be able to use it conveniently. Starting with a bus ride is an option of course, but using two forms of public transportation on one trip is not convenient. So if you were hoping to park at Northgate on a weekday and use the light rail...won't work.

[neek]

[coldrain108]

[Randito]

I did a gig a few years ago for a company in Pioneer Square. Commuting from the Eastside I found that Eastgate, South Bellevue, Mercer Island and South Kirkland Park and Ride lots were all packed by about 8:30. But as long as I got to a park and ride lot by around 8 it worked well and was faster than driving. But if needed to go in late for some reason, I would just drive downtown and pay $14 or more to park. Soon a light rail station will open about two miles from my house. There are huge parking structures in the area all owned by MSFT, but I don't work for them anymore, so I'll ride my bike to the station when needed. What are the rates for paid parking at Northgate? Might still be faster and cheaper to pay for parking there and ride the train than to crawl downtown on I-5 and pay downtown parking rates.

[Sculpin]

[treeswarper]

Bike lockers.

[brewermd]

I parked in the Northgate Target lot a few weeks back with no problem to take my dad to a doctor's appt., you might try that. I don't know how far that is from the light rail station, I have lived in Bham since '95

[Anne Elk]

When the University light rail link opened, Metro simultaneously eliminated a number of N/S routes west of the University that went from north Seattle to downtown. If memory serves, the runs eliminated or shortened included the 71-74 routes and left only the #70. Suddenly there were no routes going all the way down Eastlake. It seems the idea was to try and drive all that downtown bus ridership to the trains. I don't know whether there was much time saved for the workers by forcing them to make extra bus transfers to reach the train, but I guess that was one way to "force the numbers" to get the train rider statistics Metro wanted. The lack of park and rides around the train seems of a similar mindset. Problem is, a lot of people can't hop on a bike, or have limitations that make the bus connections challenging or impossible. I've seen some chatter in the media to the effect that we may never return to the pre-pandemic commuter numbers now that work from home has proven to work well for so many. The expected number of commuters for which the system was designed may never materialize.

[Sculpin]

[altasnob]

Light rail is for 50-100 years in the future, not today. Young people can't afford single family residences in the Seattle area and most won't be able to afford them when they are older as well. It's all about high density, car-free living being built around transit zones like Northgate. Sound transit budgets more than $100,000 per parking spot it builds. Better to spend that money on transit. If you build parking at transit centers, you just move gridlock downtown to gridlock around transit centers.

[Anne Elk]

[Randito]

I've noticed that there are a number of large apartment buildings being constructed around Northgate. Also there have been and are being constructed large apartment / retail complexs along the eastlink rail line between Seattle and Redmond, particularly in the Spring District of Bellevue. The Spring District used to be mostly industrial and single story commercial, but now there are quite tall apartment buildings with retail at street level. I'll probably move into one of those buildings when I'm ready for the next step in downsizing.

[Kim Brown]

I ride the train from Northgate and haven't had a parking problem, and seldom had a problem pre-COVID. But I get there a lot earlier than 10 AM. The bus-to-station should be a good option, or will be, once they are able to study patterns to correct deficiencies. The bus-to-station isn't good from Lake Forest Park, so I continue to drive to the Park & Ride.

[neek]

[neek]