Bellevue Reporter

Sound Transit is still finalizing its plans for mitigating traffic impacts to be caused by a 5-year closure of the South Bellevue Park and Ride next year for East Link light rail construction.

Program manager Paul Cornish says community outreach will be critical in this effort. The agency anticipates the park and ride could close as early as spring 2016 for the construction of a light rail station, 1,500-stall parking garage and rail guideway.

Sound Transit continues to explore potential sites where lots could be leased to handle the loss of the park and ride — tentatively set for March 2016 — as well as what Metro bus routes could be revised. Existing park and rides — Sammamish, Tibbets Creek, Newport Hills and South Kirkland — also could be used for displaced transit riders based on their connections to routes entering Seattle, Mercer Island and downtown Bellevue, Cornish said.

Bellevue Mayor Claudia Balducci asked whether a rumor about the city of  Mercer Island opposing adding park and ride capacity there was true, to which Cornish replied that the island had been determined too far away to be a practical solution compared to a “satellite approach.” He later told the Bellevue Reporter directing more traffic to Interstate 90 also would complicate construction work that needs to occur there to bring light rail tracks from Seattle to Bellevue.

Metro Route 550 is expected to continue operating in south Bellevue, with the northbound stop remaining and a temporary southbound stop to be added near 112th Avenue Southeast.

An inventory of neighborhood parking areas will occur later this year, Cornish said, and monitoring for “hide-and-ride” commuters using up those spaces will start the same time as construction and continue once light rail service begins.

Sound Transit will come before the Bellevue City Council again on Feb. 23 to discuss plans for construction and noise impact mitigation.