Some relief near for I-90 park-and-ride hunt
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If she makes it to the popular South Bellevue Park & Ride in time, one of the 519 parking spaces might still be open. Then, she could catch the 550 express bus by 8:50 a.m. and get to her office in Seattle's Pioneer Square on time.
If the lot is full, Krueger has to move on to the next park-and-ride, catch a slower bus and be late. The alternative is to pay up to $20 a day to park in downtown Seattle, an expense she cannot afford.
Krueger's morning struggle is one thousands of King County commuters have come to know well. The race for parking spots, sometimes called lot shopping, has become a phenomenon on the Eastside, which has the highest percentage of transit commuters in the county driving to their bus.
For many, it takes two or three stops at different park-and-ride lots to find a space. Some drive from North Bend, or farther, to Mercer Island just to catch an express bus into the city. At many lots, bus riders hunting for a parking spot are out of luck by 7 a.m.
Frustrated commuters and transit officials hope five new stories of concrete opening Saturday along Interstate 90 in Bellevue will alleviate some of the pressure.
The $27 million Eastgate Park & Ride will be the largest in King County and the first park-and-ride garage. The structure has 1,646 parking spaces — 950 more than the old Eastgate lot.
It could prove especially helpful for the I-90 corridor, which has some of King County's most highly used lots. A 2001 study projected that by 2010, I-90 would have the biggest parking-stall deficit of five major corridors in the region, beating out I-5 north and south, I-405 and Highway 167.
I-90 strategy
The Eastgate garage is part of a long-term strategy King County Metro and Sound Transit hope will make commuting along I-90 easier. Over the next few years, new lots or expansions are planned for Issaquah, Sammamish and Mercer Island, adding close to 3,000 new, free parking spaces.
"The I-90 corridor is really a major initiative for us. With the Eastgate expansion and some of the other projects we have coming, I think it will really address a lot of the unmet demand," said Len Madsen, Metro supervisor of transit-route facilities.
Yet even with these upcoming projects, the I-90 corridor could still be hundreds of spaces short by 2010 and in need of an additional 1,000 or more by 2020, according to the county study.
Overall, nearly a quarter of the county's 122 lots are at or above 90 percent capacity. Sixteen are at more than 100 percent capacity, meaning commuters are parking illegally in fire lanes and at the ends of rows.
In the beleaguered I-90 corridor, officials say they can't build more spaces than they already have planned because of funding constraints and needs elsewhere in the county. Even if all the Eastside demand were met tomorrow, commuters would probably grow hungry for more, planners say.
"It's the chicken-or-the-egg thing," said Jim Arrowsmith, Eastside service planner for Metro. "Which comes first? If there's a larger lot, we could provide more service. But then it would be more attractive, and more people would use it.
" Then again, if we were able to fill up more buses, we could afford to put more lots out there."
Not always welcome
Aside from the cost, building and expanding park-and-rides can be contentious. Sound Transit and Mercer Island officials negotiated for years before agreeing on a way to expand the island's 257-stall Park & Ride.
Despite the fact the lot is at 102 percent capacity, some residents have been reluctant to add spaces, fearing it would hurt aesthetics and property values. Many are angry that off-island commuters bound for Seattle take up the stalls.
The lot-shopping phenomenon speaks to the popularity of park-and-rides east of Lake Washington. Nearly half of all riders drive to a park-and-ride to catch the bus in East King County, compared with a quarter in South King County and 6 percent in North King County, which includes Seattle, according to King County Metro's 2002 rider survey.
Last year, the Eastside's permanent park-and-ride lots averaged 79 percent capacity, compared with 78 percent in Metro's north district and 72 percent in the south.
At least part of Eastsiders' enthusiasm for park-and-rides has to do with sprawl, said Arrowsmith. With so many superblocks, cul-de-sacs and rural areas, many people aren't within a short walking distance of a bus stop, he said.
"It's an artificial concentration," said Arrowsmith of the park-and-rides, which can be as basic as a leased church parking lot with one bus sign or can incorporate a transit center with several bus bays and rider services.
The larger lots serve as a collection point for commuters headed to major job centers, like Seattle. Many prefer to take the express coaches that head from a handful of the big Eastside lots straight downtown via I-90, without making neighborhoods stops.
"It's people's time and money," Arrowsmith said. "They want to go to where service is fast and direct."
The choice between the Eastside's big, busy I-90 lots — such as Eastgate and South Bellevue — and the less-crowded lots elsewhere is one Esmeralda Byrd struggles with every day.
The Redmond resident works for a nonprofit in Seattle and prefers to commute by bus across I-90, a less congested route with dedicated car-pool and transit lanes. The Highway 520 bridge can take twice as long, Byrd said.
But parking at any major lot along the I-90 corridor is often impossible by 8 a.m., she said. Once, Byrd was so desperate for a spot that she parked illegally at Mercer Island's community center — a technique transit officials sometimes call "hide-and-ride."
She took the bus back to the island on her lunch hour, hoping a space had opened up. None had. She had to take her car all the way to Bellevue before getting back on the bus toward Seattle.
"It's so frustrating," she said. "But I'd rather be late to work than pay $20 to park."
By the time Krueger made it to the South Bellevue Park-and-Ride at 8:50 a.m. on a recent morning, the lot was crammed.
Daily gamble
Suddenly, a space between two cars appeared, and Krueger slipped into what appeared to be the very last stall. Another day, another gamble.
"You're always feeling kind of at risk doing it like this," she said. "But I have to make it work."
The Eastgate garage could help. It will boast more frequent trips on some routes, a covered waiting area, a passenger drop-off zone, bicycle lockers, three charging stations for electric cars, security surveillance and a future connection to I-90 transit ramps planned by Sound Transit.
The garage could take some overflow from other lots, and with high gas prices and falling unemployment, more commuters could start riding the bus.
Until then, "It's very hard to project how many new commuters will come to this lot because it looks good," said Arrowsmith. "But if the buses get too crowded, we'll adjust. We'll be watching."
Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com
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