Overnight parking in TUK

[AC4400]

I plan to take Amtrak Cascades 509 from TUK to ALY on Friday and back by 508 on Sunday. I noticed that the newly renovated TUK station has quite a few parking spaces marked with "Amtrak Passenger Only" (southern end of the parking lot). Also I saw this sentence on Amtrak Cascades website: "The new parking lot on the west side of the Tukwila Station Platform has been paved. Free overnight parking is now available." I'm wondering if I can park my car at those spots during weekends.

 

[rickycourtney]

Sounds like yes!

Usually Sound Transit doesn't allow overnight parking in their parking lots, but since these are designated Amtrak parking spaces and the Amtrak Cascades website says overnight parking is okay... I'd say you're good to go!

 

[AC4400]

Sounds like yes!

Usually Sound Transit doesn't allow overnight parking in their parking lots, but since these are designated Amtrak parking spaces and the Amtrak Cascades website says overnight parking is okay... I'd say you're good to go!

I sent an email to Amtrak and got the feedback as "233 short term parking, 0 long term parking in TUK".

Feel strange as the parking spots are marked "Amtrak Passenger Only". No Amtrak passenger will park the car there for < 24 hours.

 

[fairviewroad]

I sent an email to Amtrak and got the feedback as "233 short term parking, 0 long term parking in TUK".

Feel strange as the parking spots are marked "Amtrak Passenger Only". No Amtrak passenger will park the car there for < 24 hours.

Sounds like a case where the left hand doesn't know what the right is doing. There were 28,000 Amtrak passengers in FY14 in TUK.

That works out to about 77 passengers per day. Clearly, if there are 233 spaces for Amtrak passengers, they are meant to be used for "long-term" (i.e. overnight) parking.

 

[rickycourtney]

I agree. This is clearly a case of the left hand (WSDOT) not telling the right hand (Amtrak) that there's been a change. As evidenced by amtrakcasades.com, now that construction is done at Tukwila, there is dedicated Amtrak parking, that's available for overnight parking.

I'd shoot an email to [email protected] and tell them to inform Amtrak of the change to the parking rules.

 

[AC4400]

Want to update here.

I got a response from [email protected] as follows :

"[SIZE=11pt]There are 40 parking spaces for Amtrak passengers and all of them are available for overnight parking. You are welcome to use those parking spaces for a few nights in a row such as you describe below.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=11pt]Enjoy your trips and thank you for riding Amtrak Cascades![/SIZE]"