Judkins Park Station Area Curbspace Planning
April 2025 Notice of Decision Flyers: Español • 繁体字 • 한국어 • Tiếng việt• Tagalog• af-Soomaali • አማርኛ • ትግሪኛ
Updated April 15, 2025
You’ll See Changes to Street Parking Around Judkins Park Station in Fall 2025!
Restricted Parking Zone (RPZ) Notice of Decision
When the new Judkins Park Light Rail Station opens at the end of this year, you’ll be able to reach many destinations in Seattle and the Eastside quickly and efficiently.
We’ve created a street parking plan to make it easier for residents and people visiting businesses to find parking. This plan will keep commuters from parking near the station all day. Your input during the 2024 planning process helped us create a better plan for the community. Thank you for your feedback!
Street Parking Plan:
- Near the new station, we’ll create a Restricted Parking Zone (RPZ) around the future station. This fall, residents will be able to buy permits to park on the street for longer than the posted RPZ time limits.
- We’re adding 4-hour parking limits next to non-residential places, like businesses, schools, churches, and parks to make sure customers and visitors can find parking. We’re creating new disabled parking spaces near these areas, too.
- You’ll also see new load zones in places where it’s important to have reliable access for deliveries and for drop offs.
- We’re posting signs near crosswalks and intersections where parking is illegal to increase safety.
In reponse to your feedback, we extended the project area to cover more streets. The map below shows the plan’s boundaries and the specific streets where we will install RPZ and time-limited signs. (See project timeline below for important dates.) We will update the plan soon to show the new disabled parking spaces as well.
If you live within the blue hatched project area shown on the map, you will be eligible to purchase RPZ permits. The orange lines on the map show where we are installing RPZ signs, and the purple lines on the map show where we are installing 4-hour parking limits.
Here's What to Look For:
Project Timeline
Questions about this Plan?
Please see the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) at the bottom of this page.
Why We Made This Plan
When the new Judkins Park Light Rail Station opens at the end of this year, we want to make it easier for residents and people visiting businesses and other places to find street parking. By creating an RPZ and adding parking time limits, you’ll see fewer commuters parking all day near the station. This will also help lower carbon emissions, air pollution, and traffic in the area.
We used these goals to guide our plans:
- Encourage people to walk, bike, or use buses or light rail
- Prioritize parking for residents
- Provide short-term parking for visitors to businesses, schools, and parks
Planning Process and Community Engagement:
2022: As a first step in understanding existing conditions, we worked together with Sound Transit to complete a parking study in February 2023. The study included surveys of vehicle occupancy for streets around the future station-- information that helped us develop our initial plan for street parking. More information about the study as well as maps showing the weekday occupancy survey results can be viewed here.
Fall 2023: We engaged with organizations such as schools and religious centers in the project area to share information about the project and to learn about their concerns.
February 2024: We proposed an initial parking plan, and we shared an online survey to get feedback from residents, employees, and others who visit the area. Survey respondents expressed support for the project’s goals (84%,) and most residents in the project area (75%) said they were in favor of a Restricted Parking Zone. You can learn more about the survey results by clicking here.
September 2024: We shared an updated plan and held a virtual public hearing to explain the plan, listen to public comments, and answer questions. You can watch the public hearing here, and view the presentation slides here.
April 2025: After the public hearing, we adjusted our plan again to extend to Martin Luther King Jr. Way S and shared the final plan and timeline for implemention.
Are you an employer in the Judkins Park area?
There are multiple incentive and options for helping your employees with their commutes!
- Commute Seattle provides free business services to help employers and property managers develop customized commute solutions that can save money and improve employee commutes. For more info, check out commuteseattle.com
- ORCA Business Passport is a cost-effective annual transportation pass program for employers with 5+ employees that covers all regional bus rides, light rail, and more. Smaller employers may also qualify for incentives. To learn more, contact tarap@commuteseattle.com
- Seattle’s Commuter Benefits Ordinance requires that employers with 20+ employees offer employees the option to make monthly pre-tax payroll deductions for transit or vanpool expenses. Learn more at commuteseattle.com/cbo
Project Materials:
September 25, 2025 - Public hearing slides and video
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: English
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: Español
September 2024 Flyer - public hearing notice: 繁体字
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: 한국어
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: Tiếng việt
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: Tagalog
September 2024 Flyer - public hearing notice: af-Soomaali
September 2024 Flyer- public hearing notice: አማርኛ
September 2024 Flyer - public hearing notice: ትግሪኛ)
February 2024 Flyer: Tiếng việt
February 2024 Flyer: af-Soomaali
Project Factsheet: Traditional Chinese (繁体字)
Project Factsheet: Korean (한국어)
Project Factsheet: Vietnamese (Tiếng việt)
Project Factsheet: Somali (af-Soomaali)
Project Factsheet: Amharic (አማርኛ)
Community Meetings
April 16, 2024 – Jackson Place Community Council Presentation
October 20, 2022 – Jackson Place Community Council Presentation
FAQ
RPZ signs are installed next to residential locations within an established Zone. Vehicles with an RPZ permit do not need to comply with the restrictions posted on the sign. Non-permitted vehicles may also park next to an RPZ sign if they comply with the time limits on the sign.
Residents may purchase up to four permits, and one guest permit. Guest permits are issued as hangtags and are valid for two years; the resident is issued a hangtag that any visitor can put on their rearview mirror for the duration of their stay to exempt them from RPZ restrictions.
Permit fees directly pay for the costs of operating and managing the Restricted Parking Zone program. This includes the software and staff required to review applications and issue permits, installation and maintenance of parking signs, staff to support requests for zone changes, and program parking studies based on local requests. Permit fees do not fund enforcement.
RPZ permits cost $95 and are valid for up to two years. We also have a $10 income-eligible permit fee available.
The purpose of this parking plan is to reduce all-day light rail commuter parking on neighborhood streets when the light rail station opens.
The new RPZ and time-limits could help to address some existing parking congestion, but it’s important to note that Restricted Parking Zones do not reduce resident parking congestion, because all residents within a Restricted Parking Zone are eligible for permits.
However, Restricted Parking Zones often change over time, and they can expand. We have a process for considering single-block expansions (or removals), and you can read more about that process here. In general, we will not expand a Zone more than a ½ mile from the parking demand generator for the Zone; in this case, the parking demand generator is Judkins Park Light Rail Station.
While we cannot make guarantees about the amount of parking enforcement this area will receive on any given day, Restricted Parking Zones in general have a greater Parking Enforcement presence than neighborhoods with unrestricted streets.
Our team coordinates closely with SPD Parking Enforcement. Their staff attend our planning meetings, and they reviewed this parking plan. Information about Parking Enforcement can be found here.
While there are multiple park-and-ride facilities at other East Link stations outside of Seattle, the Judkins Park area is a denser area in the City of Seattle. A parking garage at this location would not only be extremely expensive, it would also contribute to increased traffic congestion in an already busy area.
Our goal is to reduce all-day commuter parking around the light rail station to make it easier for residents and people visiting businesses, parks, and other places to find street parking. The planned restriction hours and days for this RPZ are the same as those at Mount Baker, Beacon Hill, and other Southeast light rail station areas that currently connect to the stadium area stations.
We understand that it can be challenging to change the way that you commute to work. Our goals are to reduce all-day commuter parking and traffic congestion, while encouraging alternatives to travel in single-occupancy vehicles. While we recognize that some areas are better served by transit than others, there are more options and incentives available than in years past, and transit options will increase as the regional light rail system and improved bus corridors open for service.
If you are an employer in this area, please consider connecting with Commute Seattle to learn more about available incentives and options to help your employees with their commutes:
https://www.commuteseattle.com/
While we do offer some employee permits in a small number of Restricted Parking Zones, we consider specific conditions within a Zone when evaluating these requests. Amongst other considerations, we evaluate vehicle parking occupancy and how close your business is to transit. With high parking occupancy and the light rail station in the center of the project area, we are not offering employee permits for this Zone. You can read more about employee permits and the criteria that we apply here.
The existing RPZ 17 portion of Sturgus St is already physically separated by terrain and Lewis Park from the rest of RPZ 17. This change will allow these residents to park on streets in the new Judkins Park zone, which will give them more options. This will also provide consistency on this street: if the entire street is in the same RPZ, it will be clearer for residents, visitors, and Parking Enforcement officers.
RPZ 17 permits expire in April 2026. The new Judkins Park RPZ will be set to begin in February 2026, so if you choose to purchase a new RPZ permit, there will be two months of overlap. Please note that permit fees are not intended to cover a two year period of time; they are intended to cover the costs of administering the RPZ program and permit issuance.