Sound Transit introducing paid parking permits at three garages

Tired of racing to your favorite Sound Transit parking garage to find a space each morning? You might be able to buy your way into a spot going forward.

Sound Transit is now offering paid parking permits at three of its parking garages.

You can apply for $60 monthly permits or $6 one day permits at the Northgate Station, the Shoreline North Station at 185th, and the Shoreline South Station at 148th. Sound Transit is also opening up free carpool permits at Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace. Carpool permits were already available at Northgate, Angle Lake, Tukwila, and Sumner.

“Paid parking is a response to robust demand,” Sound Transit’s David Jackson said. “Hopefully, we will be able to free up some spots with this offer and create some churn in the garage so more people can avail themselves of our parking facilities.”

Paid parking targets three Sound Transit garages routinely hitting 90% capacity

These paid permits are only being offered at the garages that are routinely at 90% capacity.

These changes take effect on Friday, May 1. That’s when you can start applying for parking in June. The permits are available a month ahead of time.

The plan is to eventually add paid parking at Lynnwood and Mountlake Terrace, too.

“Sound Transit does not completely control those facilities today, and when we do, we will probably introduce paid parking there as well,” Jackson said.

I asked Jackson why permits are not yet available for garages serving the 2-Line on the Eastside. The answer is simple: there just isn’t enough data yet on how the public is using those garages. The 2-Line only opened last month.

“I think we’re going to let consumer behavior drive our offerings,” Jackson said.

You can expect that if those Eastside garages start filling up consistently, paid parking permits will make their way there, too.

Regular parking remains free; permits only guarantee a reserved spot

Right now, only about 5-to-10% of garage users are taking advantage of the permitting system, and Sound Transit can only allow 25% of parking at any garage to be used with permit parking.

“By board policy, we can only do 25% of the garage is paid permit parking, and we’re not at that,” Jackson said. “We’re starting kind of small here. We’re going to let data drive our decision-making and how we expand it and what pricing will be in the future.”

Jackson clarified that the combination of paid solo permits and free carpool permits cannot be above 25% at any garage.

And to be completely clear, you are not required to pay for parking starting May 1st. This is just an option that you can use to guarantee a spot. The permit spots are saved from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Chris Sullivan is a traffic reporter for KIRO Newsradio. Read more of his stories here. Follow KIRO Newsradio traffic on X.

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