Clark County’s bus agency is setting up a chess game to sell east Vancouver on higher sales taxes, and one of its pieces is the little-used Evergreen Park-and-Ride.
C-Tran thinks that when it goes to voters with a hike of three cents on each $10 sale, sometime in 2011 or soon after, the light rail and bus-rapid-transit tax will be a relatively easy sell for west and central Vancouver.
But east Vancouver will want benefits, too. So the transit agency says that if the issue passes, it’ll sell the 270-space lot near Evergreen High School and run more express buses to downtown Portland from a bigger, better park-and-ride along I-205.
“Park-and-rides are better utilized when they’re closer to freeways,” C-Tran spokesman Scott Patterson said. “It’s all the visibility and access.”
If a sales tax for bus rapid transit along Fourth Plain Boulevard and light-rail operations passes in 2011, east Vancouver would get a few benefits, too:
o New bus route between the Vancouver mall and Fisher's Landing, along Fourth Plain Boulevard and 162nd Avenue.
o New bus route along 192nd Avenue.
o Faster bus service -- as much as every 10 minutes, up from 20 minutes today -- on Mill Plain Boulevard.
o More express buses from a bigger park-n-ride along I-205.
It’s one of several benefits east Vancouver would see. (See box).
But if the 20-year-old Evergreen Park-and-Ride went looking for greener pastures, where would it land?
And what would become of its corner lot on Northeast 138th Avenue and 18th Street?
If a sales tax for bus rapid transit along Fourth Plain Boulevard and light-rail operations passes in 2011, east Vancouver would get a few benefits, too:
o New bus route between the Vancouver mall and Fisher’s Landing, along Fourth Plain Boulevard and 162nd Avenue.
o New bus route along 192nd Avenue.
o Faster bus service — as much as every 10 minutes, up from 20 minutes today — on Mill Plain Boulevard.
o More express buses from a bigger park-n-ride along I-205.
Empty parking lot
There’s no question that the Evergreen Park-and-Ride is, as Patterson puts it, “underutilized.”
Only three Route 177 buses leave the lot for downtown Portland each morning. They return each afternoon.
These days, the 270-space parking lot is almost empty. Last Wednesday, it had exactly 13 cars at 4:30 p.m.
“Most people walk,” said Trevor Laughter, 34, a downtown Portland worker who bikes to the Park-and-Ride each morning from his nearby house. “Or they get picked up by somebody.”
If the ballot issue passes, Patterson said, C-Tran would look to build a 450-space lot within eyeshot of I-205, hopefully near 18th Street and 112th Avenue.
That’s a mile and a half to the west of the current site. It’s also the spot where a new highway interchange is supposed to open in 2014 or so.
The goal, Patterson said, would be to draw express bus riders from up to 10 miles away — enough to add more daily buses.
“The modeling has shown that there’s strong demand for commuter service across the 205 corridor,” Patterson said.
Estimated cost: $14.6 million, offset somewhat by the sale of the current 2.3 acre transit center.
Good industrial site?
Bill Connelly, a vice president for Eric Fuller and Associates in Vancouver who specializes in industrial land, said the 138th Avenue park-and-ride would be a “very desirable” bit of industrial real estate.
“It’s paved, it’s cleared,” Connelly said. “You probably wouldn’t have a lot of site work. … Sites like that are few and far between.”
The site is zoned for light industrial use today.
What if it were rezoned for retail? Pam Lindloff, a real-estate vice president with Norris, Beggs and Simpson in Vancouver, was less effusive.
“Hi-School Pharmacy just north of there has struggled,” Lindloff said, referring to the store on 28th Street and 138th Avenue. “It’s not like it’s Fourth Plain or Mill Plain.”
Lindloff said she could see the park-and-ride space becoming a convenience store or a few shops that cater to the immediate area, such as a hair salon, insurance office, coffee shop, pizza takeout joint or day care center.
Jesse Magaña, chairman of the Fircrest Neighborhood Association, said he wouldn’t want that corner to become a teen hangout.
“I would hate to see stores there, because of the (Evergreen) high school,” he said. “The kids are always going to want to get over there during break or during lunch.”
As for the 2011 C-Tran vote, Magaña said his support would depend on whether C-Tran can improve its C-Van service for people with disabilities.
Laughter, the biker and express bus rider, said he expects to vote against the ballot issue.
“I’m against the light rail,” Laughter said.
Michael Andersen: 360-735-4508 or michael.andersen@columbian.com.
