The Port of Seattle is offering a section of the airport parking garage at half price before Seahawk games.  Between 8am and 1pm tomorrow, parking in this section will be $2 an hour.

As Tukwila’s lot always overflows, this is a good bet if you don’t want to drive into the Rainier Valley and park at one of many private lots, or simply park on the street for free.  As no media outlet but this one has spent any effort on publicizing the parking available all along the line, this will probably turn out to be a popular option.

35 Replies to “A New Seahawks Parking Option”

      1. Most lots for a Mariners game charge $20-$25 for those right next to Safeco. It has been awhile since I was at a Seahawks game, but I vaguely remember them charging more, like at least $30-$40.

    2. Depends on the event. Mid-week game, late September, Mariners way out of the pennant race? Parking is relatively cheap! Cheaper than train fare for a whole family, most likely. But a weekend game against the Yankees, with the M’s in first place? Price goes way up, $20 and up. (And even that can be cheaper than round trip train fare for a group.)

      I don’t know if the cost of parking in the garage next to Safeco changes or if it has a flat fee, though. The old Kingdome North Lot had a flat fee back in the day. Since moving to Beacon Hill, I haven’t driven to a Mariners game once. The 36 was my Stadium Shuttle, but Link is a better one. ;)

  2. Hopefully the port is willing to look at this again next year. Perhaps we’ll have a winning team (both Mariners and Seahawks).

  3. How much will the parking be after 1pm, since the game starts at 1pm? Full price? If it is, then it isn’t much cheaper, if at all, than the parking at Qwest Field.

    1. The parking is $2 per hour all day if you arrive between 8am and 1pm. The regular price is $4.

      1. If that’s the way it will work, that’s awesome! I was just being cynical, since this IS the Port of Seattle, you know.

    1. The Airport Link station could be said to be located at one of the largest park & ride garages in the world.

      1. If depresses me that they’re buliding a seperate rental car garage offsite when they already have the biggest parking structure in the world.

      2. The Port loves spending money. They get $4.50 tax (Passenger Facility Charge) for every passenger. They get 11% concession fee for rental cars. They are charging a fee per rental (I think it is around $10) for this garage. With all this money they have to spend it on something, whether it is economically viable or not. The Port is largely run by commissioners “selected” by unions and shipping companies. The shipping companies mostly don’t care and the unions want the construction jobs.

      3. Actually port commissioners are elected by the voting public. Not sure how that translates into “selected”.

        Democracy is grand – if you participate.

      4. The way it works is that 99% of the population is not interested in the port commissioner races, and the two groups that really care are the unions and the shipping companies. They donate essentially all the money in each race, and the commissioners are largely accountable to the people who donate to them. In most port commissioner races there is one labor candidate and one shipping candidate. Sometimes candidates can bridge the two constituencies, at least on some issues.

      5. PS: With the deficits that are facing King County, does it really make economic sense that the Port will collect $73.5 million in property taxes in 2010 and spend it on things like rental car facilities? Why can’t the port be self-sustaining (both airport and shipping) and this taxing authority be spent on more important government services, including health and transit?

        Our port commissioners will never do this because the shipping companies love this subsidy from property tax payers.

      6. FWIW the airport portion of the Port’s operations is supposedly self-sustaining and funded by fees to the airlines, rental car companies, and other tenants.

      7. Many of the airport fees are paid directly by travelers – e.g. the Passenger Facilities Charge added to airfares, the airport concession fee added to rental car charges, the facility charge for rental cars, etc. Other fees are paid by merchants and airlines.

        But I agree that the port property taxes are primarily (maybe exclusively) spent on the sea port. But I don’t think it is justified to spend $73.5 million of public tax money on the port each year. It doesn’t create sufficient benefit to the public, and it should be prioritized against other public needs.

      8. Yeah the rental car facility is self-sustaining, but this doesn’t take into account the fact that they are not utilizing the existing parking garage. The way I see it, the existing parking garage could absorb the extra spaces needed to house all the rental car companies at the cost of an some spots in the existing garage that are currently available to the public (for which ther is already a massive oversupply). Essentially we are missing out on a much more efficient use of our parking garage. Instead, the new garage will open up a few more thousand spots to the public.

      9. Yeah the rental car facility is self-sustaining, but this doesn’t take into account the fact that they will not be utilizing the existing parking garage. The way I see it, the existing parking garage could easily absorb the extra spaces needed to house all the rental car companies at the cost of some spots in the existing garage that are currently available to the public (for which ther is already a massive oversupply). Essentially we are missing out on a much more efficient use of our parking garage. Instead, the new garage will open up a few more thousand unneeded spots to the public in the existing garage.

      11. The way I see it, if they’re gonna building the rental-car facility, at least build an outside-of-security APM from the terminal to the Link station to the facility!

  6. Seems like a pretty steep price to me. Given, say, a 3.5 hour game, plus a 38 minute commute each way as well as an hour prior to the game, you’re looking at total parking of approximately 5.5 to 6 hours. That’s going to cost you $11-$12, plus train fare. For a family of 4, the cost would be $33-$34 when you factor this in. I don’t think this will get many takers.

    2. Have you ever tried to get through traffic after a sold-out Mariners or Seahawks game? I’d take Link in a heartbeat, even at that price. That said, I’ve got a pass so it’s even less expensive for me.

      Heck, I could cheat and use my free parking pass at the Metro base right next door, but I wouldn’t. There’s no way I’d wade into that traffic with a car if I could use Link.

      1. Not to veer off topic, but why is Metro giving free parking passes to employees? Especially at bases practically in downtown? Doesn’t make sense to me.

        And to your point on the post-game traffic: yes, it can be bad, but I doubt you’d save much time with the 38-minute ride to the airport, 5 minute walk to your car, and several minutes winding your way down the garage, paying, and getting back onto the freeway.

      2. Sometimes buses don’t run at the time employees need to be at work. If you drove the first or last bus of the day, how do you get to the base or home?

        And all the bases outside downtown surprisingly have poor transit access.

      3. Actually there’s only one parking garage that services Central, Atlantic, and Ryerson bases for Metro employees. All operators are actually required to own a reliable personal vehicle to ensure we can get to work.

        We don’t always have a lot of choice over which base we work at. Why should there be free parking available at 4 out othe seven bases, but not the 3 downtown?

        As Oran pointed out, there is extremely limited – or even nonexistent – transportation available at times, particularly prior to the first and after the last run. In order to get to my own shift (sign in at 5:07 am) I’d need to take the Owl from Ballard about 3:15. Full-time folks working late shifts wouldn’t have any way to get home.

        Note that we also get free transit passes like all County employees, and a lot of us make extensive use of public transportation as well.

  7. Hilarious — the result of ‘mass’ transit is overflowing parking garages.

    Could Seattle become more of a laughing stock?

      1. Only if you lack some sort of intelligent response, such as “How in the world would mass transit *cause* overflowing parking garages? What would the parking situation be without mass transit?”

        But that’s just wacky old me, wanting to actually respond to outrageous claims with rational information rather than calling for a “ban hammer” at the drop of a question mark. Call me foolish, I guess.

      2. Jeff,

        That’s called feeding the trolls. It doesn’t help.

        But both of you, please leave comment moderation to us. If you think someone is trolling simply ignore it. The internet won’t collapse if a dumb comment goes unchallenged.

      3. Sorry, I just saw a string of trollish comments roll in over the RSS feed and felt I had to respond.

        As I really can’t complain about the moderation job being done at STB I’ll just be quiet and leave the comment moderation to those with moderating privileges.

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