King County Metro is scheduled to close the Houghton Park-and-Ride on March 18, 2023, due to low utilization. Based on observations, about five vehicles park at this location to regularly access transit, about 3 percent of the 470-vehicle parking lot.
Routes 245 and 342 are the only routes that use the facility, and riders will have easy access to stops within the same block.
- Route 245 will continue to run on Northeast 70th Place and serve the current eastbound stop (72312), as well as a new westbound stop on Northeast 70th Place and 116th Avenue Northeast (72311).
- Route 342 will continue to serve the existing freeway stops (82841 and 82716).
Additional assistance for trip planning can be found by calling the Customer Information Office at 206-553-3000.
Alternative Transit Customer parking is available at the following locations:
- Kingsgate Park-and-Ride: 13001 116th Way NE. Served by routes 225, 252, 255, 257 & DART 930
- Kirkland Way Park-and-Ride: 11255 Kirkland Way. Served by routes 239 & 250
- South Kirkland Park-and-Ride: 10610 NE 38th Pl. Served by routes 249, 250 & 255 (BikeLink on-demand bike lockers are available.)
- Redmond Transit Center: 8178 161st Ave NE. Served by routes 221, 224, 232, 250, 542, 545, 930, & B Line (BikeLink on-demand bike lockers are available.) Routes 245 and 342 will continue service using nearby stops.
Yup I’m sure somebody will be building a high-rise of some sort.
This will speed up route 245 for all riders headed to Kirkland from Microsoft or Crossroads, while adversely affecting almost no one. Sounds like a win to me!
Of course there is low utilization. Metro has almost completely withdrawn service from Houghton P&R. I suppose there was never great service and it wasn’t easy to serve since neither the walking routes for southbound stops nor the deviations for southbound buses worked.
Are we headed for the same outcome at S. Kirkland? The 255 truncation at UW makes S. Kirkland way less convenient if you heading to downtown Seattle. I doubt that there has been a fair analysis and Covid makes that difficult. But especially returning to the Eastside, the time penalty of taking Link to UW vs. just catching the 255 along 4th Ave or Olive Way is so huge, it must have reduced a lot of demand for S. Kirkland P&R
And what will it be used for instead? Farmers Market? Homeless camp? Sold to highest bidder?
The next steps for the property will be in the hands of WSDOT.