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Carpooling transit riders can get first dibs on parking at Angle Lake, starting next month.

HOV parking permits are returning to the Angle Lake parking garage. Riders can go and request a free HOV parking permit for April. Angle Lake joins Northgate and Tukwila as the light rail stations with this option.

“The number of spaces will be determined by the demand that we receive for the actual permits, so it’s not a fixed number of spots,” Sound Transit’s David Jackson said. “Currently, Angle Lake is pretty much 99% filled a lot of days in the week, so this is a way to get more people on transit using the same number of parking spots.”

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The 160 spots at Angle Lake are usually gone early in the day.

Those requesting a free HOV permit must tie their ORCA Card to the account and have a passenger do the same, and they both have to take transit from that spot.

“Two people have to ride a bus or train from the same station from the transit center on the same day 12 days per month to qualify for the monthly permit renewal,” Jackson said.

Sound Transit can and will check to see if you’re meeting those benchmarks, and you could be denied if you fail to meet them.

“Initially, it will be more of an education process and you know more of a carrot and stick, but because we want people to use it and want people to ease into it,” Jackson said. “We can check and theoretically we could deny.”

And since we’re talking about free parking, let’s talk about paid parking at Sound Transit lots.

They are free today, but that’s going to change this fall. The agency is working on a paid, monthly parking permit system for some of the busiest lots.

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“We haven’t really arrived at a fee yet or an exact date when it’s going to start, but it’s anticipated fall of 2024,” Jackson said.

This means drivers can save their spot and not worry about getting up early and battling for one.

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