A new survey of 878 bus riders who use the Northgate Transit Center concludes that a strong majority of riders support spending money on bus service, rather than new parking facilities, to mitigate the loss of parking at Northgate during light rail construction.

As we first reported, Sound Transit is considering building a new parking garage at Northgate with 500 stalls, despite the fact that only 117 park-and-ride stalls will be permanently displaced by light rail construction. Other options include expanding transit service from neighborhoods to the transit center, or temporarily sharing underutilized private parking garages nearby.

The survey, which has a 5 percent margin of error, found that "A large majority of riders support spending limited transit funding on additional bus service (61%) rather than on building a new parking garage (39%)." Additionally, few riders---just 19 percent---said they'd be willing to pay $3 to park in a new parking garage.

However, there was also strong support for temporary park-and-ride lots near the transit center during rail construction: Of those polled, 28 percent said they would support temporary parking at the transit center, and 24 percent said they would support temporary parking along bus routes to the station. 

Most of the riders (69 percent) who use the transit center drive and park in the park-and-ride, and most are headed to Seattle, predominantly downtown.