Light rail’s coming a bit closer to Kent next month with a lot more parking spaces.
Sound Transit officials announced on Tuesday that they plan to open the Angle Lake light rail station in SeaTac on Sept. 24 with 1,050 parking spots in a new garage at South 200th Street and 28th Avenue South, just west of International Boulevard. The 1.6-mile extension, which includes an elevated track and station, will stretch from Sea-Tac Airport to the new station.
“In one month’s time, the benefits of light rail will be opened up to thousands of new riders in Kent, Des Moines and SeaTac,” said King County Councilman Dave Upthegrove, whose District 5 includes those three cities, in a phone interview. “This is a really big deal for South King County because with the new Angle Lake station comes over 1,000 new parking spots.”
People quickly fill up the Tukwila Station’s 600 parking spots for commutes to Seattle for work or sporting events or other destinations. The new station also will include 70 surface lot parking spaces across the street.
“I will be ditching my car and taking advantage of the consistent and frequent 40-minute trip from my home in Des Moines to my job in Seattle,” said Upthegrove.
Construction started in 2013 on the $383 million project that Sound Transit expects to draw 5,400 daily riders by 2018. The cost of the parking garage is $32 million.
The station could benefit University of Washington students and staff from Kent and surrounding cities as well.
“UW students and employees will be able to get to campus in 48 minutes without having to deal with the stress and delays of downtown traffic,” Upthegrove said.
Trips to the stadiums will take 34 minutes. Trips to Westlake Center in downtown Seattle will take 41 minutes.
The trains will run every 15 minutes from 5-6 a.m.; every six minutes from 6-8:30 a.m.; every 10 minutes from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; every six minutes from 3-6:30 p.m.; every 10 minutes from 6:30-10 p.m.; and every 15 minutes from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
To keep people from parking at the garage for airport trips out of town, Sound Transit security will staff the facility 24 hours a day seven days a week, as it does at its Tukwila International Boulevard Link station. Cars parked more than 24 hours will be ticketed and towed.
The agency will also launch a paid parking permit program this fall for transit riders accessing the station though carpools and other high-occupancy vehicles. It will launch the same permit program for single-occupancy-vehicle transit users next year.
“As a long-time Sound Transit board member and lifelong South King County resident, I am excited to see light rail progress south through the county,” Upthegrove said.
The parking garage includes retail space on the ground floor, but Sound Transit has yet to find a tenant for the space.
“We plan to begin advertising for this space once construction is complete,” according to a Sound Transit media release.
The design-build plans for the garage also set aside 35,000 square feet of land for transit oriented development.
Sound Transit plans to extend the line to Kent near Highline College, South 240th Street and Pacific Highway South by 2023. Funds for the Kent station were already approved by voters in 2008. If voters approve in November the $54 billion ST3 measure, as part of that package the agency will extend the line to South 320th Street in Federal Way by 2024 and delay the Kent station by one year.
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