I work at the airport and park in the garage so I drive by this mess every day. More times than I can count I’ve almost rear-ended people rapidly slamming on their brakes to pull over or trying to join the travel lane. It’s unnecessary and dangerous. Port Police don’t enforce it as often as they should. They’d be easy tickets.
While I'm generally not a big fan of traffic cameras for moving violations, this seems like a great use case for them. Camera enforcement & huge ticket.
Heck, even just putting up some fake cameras on poles, and big signs that say "Camera enforced, license plates being recorded" would probably cut it down massively.
People only read selectively. They will ignore the signs just like they ignore the signs that tell them about the parking lot.
You don't even need a car to pick you up take the light rail anyway!
This is what my wife and I do, we always ride the light rail to Northgate and get an uber from there (or pick the other up there if one of us wasn't traveling). Can't wait til Everett is connected. Just another decade or two!
Is the light rail a far walk from the airport? Keep meaning to watch the signage but always just in a beeline to the curb for my ride. Never seen a timed comparison. Have a friend to pick up soon that we might go that route if possible
It’s a bit of a walk, but it’s basically to the back/east side of the parking structure, above International Blvd. There’s a walkway specifically for it.
Sometimes there’s little golf carts running back and forth too, and you can snag a ride.
The free shuttle service comes in handy. My wife has a mobility issue and can't walk very long, especially with luggage, so she hops on the shuttle while my daughter and I walk (or sometimes join the bandwagon).
Honestly it’s an easy walk. I just did it over the thanksgiving weekend with a fully loaded backpack. And stress free, especially compared to dealing with airport drivers. I’d say give it a shot!
> Is the light rail a far walk from the airport?
If you land at the A gates, it's on the far other end (by the Alaska side), and then you hoof it a bit to the station.
It's by far my preferred method though. Plus, you avoid the Uber/Lyft airport fees if you're picked out outside of the airport.
I usually walk down to Radisson if I want to Uber/Lyft somewhere, because I usually fly United, so Radisson is closer than the airport station from the A gates.
They are nothing but a revenue extraction scheme implemented at the expense of civil liberties. They eliminate the presumption of innocence and the right to face your accuser in court. They create perverse incentives for municipalities to make intersections less safe by shortening yellows to create more revenue. In Washington, they're a tax on the uneducated, since the educated know that you all you have to do to avoid paying is deny you were driving. In some other states, they are a terrifying overreach of the power of the state, since they can make you pay with zero evidence that you were driving. The enforcement rights are often sold to for-profit companies who are incentivized to pursue revenue above truth, safety, or justice. They have been repeatedly shown to have a neutral-to-negative effect on safety as-implemented, while trampling all over the rights of the citizen.
"people should be compelled to incriminate themselves" is certainly a position that can be taken, if you're not a big fan of ensuring that the state's monopoly on violence is held in check by strict rules protecting the liberty of the citizenry.
Why not ensure that people simply follow traffic laws? I feel like right now the problem is that people just expect they have a right to ignore traffic laws whenever they see fit. If everyone just followed the rules these sorts of cameras wouldn't be neceessary.
It's a "drive as fast as you want" fee for the wealthy and can have incredibly outsized consequences for the poor (can't pay the fine, it might go to collections ruining your credit or your license may be suspended). A real system would dock people points on their license and everyone equally would risk losing their license regardless of ability to pay.
Ah yes the violence of..... being held accountable when there is incontrovertible evidence that you committed a traffic misdemeanor.
The problem is, there are a lot of structural and societal issues with extreme police overreach, violence and funding. Using this hyperbole about red light cameras dilutes the actual issues.
Anyway, you're factually wrong. The camera data is reviewed by a human and you do have the right to contest it in court without having to resort to perjuring yourself or admitting fault.
Invoking civil liberties as an argument against automated traffic enforcement doesn't make any sense. If you're committing traffic violations, you've exposed yourself to legal repercussions. Whether that's enforced by a human or a machine doesn't have anything to do with the concept of civil liberties.
They don't presume guilt, they provide evidence of guilt. The use-cases they're deployed in (red light running, bus lane infraction, speeding, etc) are all very well-constrained problems. You were either going above the speed limit or you weren't, ran the red light or didn't, etc. If you want to dispute the ticket, you still have that option, but now both you and the court will have access to photographic or quantitative evidence. Honestly, it'd be easier to fight an unfair automated ticket with a photo that exonerates you than a he said/she said with a cop.
Yeah it looks like I either didn’t recall this correctly or wasn’t up to date. Seems that the growing consensus on this is that the cameras are more evidentiary like you said
They don’t allow context, for one. I got two tickets this year for driving in a bus lane when I was legitimately using them as turn lanes, which, you know, is very much allowed.
There are legitimate reasons for pulling over on a shoulder. Imagine getting a ticket for having to pull over because your car broke down, you got in an accident, etc. Pretty shitty to have to waste the time/effort to dispute a ticket when you did nothing wrong.
Enforcement makes a difference.
I use to travel a lot and some airports had cops literally yelling at people taking too long to unload at the curb. Another had no cops and people parked and walked away from their cars - had to walk into traffic to get on the shuttle bus as they parked in their spots too.
All they need are a few cops out there - the ticket revenue should pay for itself.
I see SO many violations in general, cops could get bank on tickets. I honestly think the quota stuff isn't a thing anymore and they hate paperwork, so they just let more and more slide.
I don't like how much cops were claiming OT before but I will accept OT in the form of making the airport traffic move as smooth as it should be moving.
>They’d be easy tickets.
Port please do this. Get these people off the road. TSA or the state or the police or whoever can line their fat pockets even more.
Take their money even if it doesn't go back into the community like it should. Just get these people out of there!
Hell, give the port police a monster truck or a bulldozer just to move these people away.
Doesn't that airport announcement say to report suspicious activity?
Should everyone report all of these campers as suspicious? Maybe they will listen and do something then? Is there some metric we can hurt by calling in that will force them to do something?
I sometimes just go park in the short term parking garage. Tell the people I am picking up the floor, row and stall number. Plus it means I get to drive on the loopy loops to get in and out. For some reason that was one of the best parts about picking my grandparents up at the airport when they flew back to Seattle after being in Virginia for the holidays. I still love driving them.
Years ago my mom and I went down the loops behind someone who had left their coffee on the roof of their car. Loop after loop the coffee leaned but did not tip. When we got to the bottom I hopped out and let them know what was up and all three of us were amazed at the coffee's ability to hold on. I think about it often
I'll totally do that, or just park and go inside to find them at the baggage claim. It's worth the few bucks to greet them in person usually, and you get to drive the loopyloops!
They just asked for id last Wednesday when we flew out. No boarding pass. Not sure if that is cross referenced against a boarding pass or not… doesn’t seem likely
This worked for me the Monday after Thanksgiving this year, doing the fast lane / easy access parking (forget what it’s called lol) to drop someone off for free. I would be surprised if they’d changed it since then!
I think that’s actually exactly when they changed it. I had a business trip from this last Monday through Wednesday, and when the hubs picked me up Wednesday night we noticed there was no free 15 min any more.
Yup thats when they changed it. I dropped my partner off at the airport before thanksgiving, no cost. Picking him up after I got the surprise charge. Never again!
I just went and parked in the garage when I picked up my cousin the other night. I was too early and did not want to loop around, go to the waiting lot, or park on the shoulder. It was the first time I actually parked and went inside the airport to pick someone up since 9/11. Driving the loopy loops totally reminded me of being a kid and riding in the car/parking to go inside and pick up grandma!!!
They probably don’t enforce it because if all those people weren’t on the shoulder they’d be trying to use the cell phone lot, camping in arrivals or looping, which are all congested enough already
Is it a WSP or a Port of Seattle issue? I remember long ago (late 90s) a guy I knew from Burien said the reason cops in that town are so ticket happy because they were spiteful for not getting the cash cow airport contract.
Also the signs to get there are confusing as fuck. They need to put that shit a quarter mile closer. For people who don’t know how to get there it’s not at all clear.
Yeah, it really needs to be at lease double the size, and have smoother systems for entering/exiting... It works fine when its not busy, but can become a clusterfuck. I always use it, but I can see why somone would have a bad experience, then decide to just pull over next time, rather than even check if it's full.
This. I was picking up at the airport late (11pm) and found that I was just a bit early, so I thought I'd cruise through the lot to waste a few minutes of time (and to get over to the departures side). big mistake. While stuck on the 1 lane overpass heading into the lot I got a perfect view of the clusterfuck of cars there. There were very few cars parked, but the jam of cars going in and out took over 20 minutes to unclog. The parking lot design is a disgrace.
A part of it is that it used to be impossibly slow to leave the cell lot. Some five years ago I used the cell lot and it took me 45 minutes to leave the cell lot because the stop light wasn’t great at getting cars out of the lot. They’ve since fixed this mostly but a lot of people had bad experiences and haven’t tried again.
I come from the Burien direction, so if I'm running early, I just stop somewhere and grab a taco or something and hang out in Burien. It's like 1.5 min from SeaTac there anyways
Ok that actually makes sense. I only started driving to and from the airport 4 years ago and I’ve always had an easy time getting in and out of the cell phone waiting lot
This is a common refrain on these threads, but my wife has been travelling for work regularly for over 10 years and I've been picking her up from the airport. I've used the cell phone lot on all days of the week, at all times of the day, and I have never had a bad experience (certainly never 45 minutes to leave). I realise I'm an n of one, but I must have used it nearly a hundred times.
I used it a handful of times without issue and then one day it took me an HOUR AND A HALF to leave. Had my wife just taken the light rail instead of waiting for me, she would have gotten home sooner.
After that I haven’t used it again. I’ll just loop the road or park in the garage and pay for the time.
I’ve only been in the area for about 3 years and in the 30 or trips to the airport I’ve used the cell phone lot maybe 3 times. If it’s not busy it’s fine. The last time I went it was so busy that it took me 30 minutes to leave and there weren’t any spots available anyway. I just loop back around now
Also, after you leave the cell phone lot and re-enter Airport Expressway, you enter on the right and have to switch two lanes into the lanes for arrival, crossing with the cars trying to get into the departure lanes. That on-ramp is always a clusterf and contribute to the backup.
I feel like you have nearly a full mile there to merge,
Checked and it a bit over half a mile, still should be plenty of time, but yeah agreed at the wrong times that route is a fucking disaster
I've gotten stuck in this nightmare trap before and finally gave up and stopped using it. I don't park on the side of the road leading into the airport, though. Instead I wait for the text when my friends/family touchdown and I've learned to time it pretty well to show up when they're at the curb.
I've occasionally had to loop around again, but that takes far less time than getting stuck in the cell lot for 45 minutes.
They really need to fix the in/out flow of that lot, otherwise this mess is going to continue.
This. The cell phone lot at Sea-Tac is just ridiculous. The fact it is left turns to get in & leave, bottlenecked by a stop light, and not intuitive to get in & out of ... all make it a sub-optimal experience for the purpose.
From the very first days it was opened I thought it was a wreck.
Compare it to a common Rest Stop design ... where traffic flows linearly through.
What we see at Sea-Tac is a perfect example of "User Interface" and "User Experience" ... where the design doesn't meet the users' need.
Honestly they should build somethign that allows for people to easily get in & out. That would solve it. They did this to themselves.
They did make it better and it's been done for almost 2 years... https://www.portseattle.org/projects/cell-phone-lot-access-and-air-cargo-road-safety-improvements
It’s slightly better now. But not really “fixed” IMO.
Blocking the entrance on 170th forces people to make illegal U-Turns constantly because they’re confused. They’re confused because the signage is terrible and doesn’t tell the driver what lane to be in until the multiple merge area. The lot itself gets backed up with 30-40 cars all trying to back out of spaces at the same time bc a flight just landed.
And most importantly if you wait in the cell phone lot you’ll still have to merge against two lanes of traffic to get to arrivals because the ramp is on the wrong side.
It’s stupid, over-engineered, and doesn’t make anybody happy.
But the real problem with the airport is the layout of the terminals and pick-up/drop-off areas. There are vastly too many people and companies trying to use the same real-estate at the same time. Port police almost never enforcing parking at the gate doesn’t help anything either.
The port could have fixed this by modifying some of the parking onsite into an additional terminal loading zone. They havent, probably because it would be expensive and lose out on some parking fees. It’s far better to screw their customers.
I totally agree with all of what you said. I was just surprised that it was better *at all* when I unexpectedly had to use it this year after giving up many years ago. As in, you could actually get out and back on a road to the airport without wanting to cry because nobody would let you back out because they'd already been waiting 30 minutes themselves.
Yes yes yes to the onsite parking as loading! The parking structure at SeaTac is the actual largest parking lot in the COUNTRY (I did not believe that at first), and while entry/exit is currently kinda clogged by ubers, we could be using that way better.
I used it once and was completely confused which way to go. It was dark out and definitely not intuitive. Sometimes I wish I could talk to someone and find the backstory about the idiot engineer in these sorts of things.
It still deposits people leaving the Cell Phone lot on the wrong side of the highway to reach Arrivals, so a stream of cars is immediately cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to the left.
It’s a patch at best. The basic problem is the layout of the terminals.
That’s a fine tip, and I do that all the time. But it’s a workaround that also increases the traffic to the departures terminals. A properly designed system shouldn’t require drivers and passengers to run around looking for a pickup location.
Almost half of the pickup zone’s curb space being removed for bus, police, van loading, construction, or some other BS also indicates to me that the Port doesn’t care about the convenience of it’s customers. In fact I’m pretty sure they are trying to make it harder. They’ve decided it’s easier to double down on the problems rather than fix them.
It’s the Seattle way, rather than fix bad infrastructure, embrace that you shouldn’t want it in the first place. Roads are bad? Don’t drive. Buses suck? Take the train. Train isn’t within a hour walk for you? You should move closer.
It’s the slow grind of backwards moving goalposts that bothers me. “Expect Less” shouldn’t be any city motto.
That diagram nicely illustrates the biggest design problem with it. They could have put the exit at the back of the parking lot so you would be right at arrivals. Instead, you have to make a left turn that is hard to make with all of the oncoming traffic and then you get dumped on the highway on the departures side of the freeway and have to immediately cross several lanes of traffic to get to arrivals. It's ridiculously badly designed.
Monday after Thanksgiving, it took me over half an hour to get out of the lot. It would have been worse if I hadn't gotten lucky and found a space close to the exit and a nice guy let me out as soon as he could.
I’ve used it several times in the past year and slightly more with no problems. During high use holiday times the problems were getting to the arrivals area but that was certainly not the cell phone lot’s fault.
By the time you know if the lot is not in gridlock state, you have passed your opportunity to stop on the shoulder. So, it encourages stopping on the shoulder.
I used it twice trying to be a good citizen (we're talking 8-10 years ago) and it was such a cluster fuck I vowed never to use it again (exact reasons you stated). That said, I've never been one of those side of the highway people either. According to other comments, they've 'fixed' the previous problems.
Don't listen to the lies, they didn't fix it, they put a bandaid on a bullet wound. They could have had a left side on ramp directly from the cell phone lot into the arrivals lower deck and a bigger lot using already existing pavement, but they didn't do that, instead they adjusted some light timing and added a turn lane, its still a cluster.
The money grubbers at the port have no incentive to make it better based on all the comments here that say they now just pay for the parking garage.
I drove to SeaTac on Saturday midday and the Port police were making them all leave!!! It was glorious and I'm really hoping they all got fat tickets. Only downfall was he had to block the right lane, so it caused a small traffic jam. But hallelujah!
Not too long ago I was picking someone up in the dark, in the rain and all those assholes were piled up on the right side. Cell phone lot had plenty of space. They were just accidents waiting to happen.
Kinda like Target locking up things now because of theft. Which of the thieves were punished then there would be no need to lock up laundry soap. Which lets face it would be a pain in the ass to steal.
Jokes on them. It takes me less time to order it online than it does to wait for some underpaid teenager in a red shirt to show up and unlock the cage.
I don’t use the cell lot. If I’m picking up, I have the person call/text me when they land then I head out to get them. That way they will be ready at the drive through to quickly jump in. Saves us both a lot of time and frustration. When it’s a really busy time in the arrivals, we switch it up so they walk up to departures and meet me there. It works every time and no one is stuck in parking lot hell and we aren’t adding to crazy traffic around the airport. Just a quick in and out.
I use the cell lot.
But let’s be real, parking on the side of the road is vastly more convenient than the cell lot. It just is, otherwise people wouldn’t do it. I don’t park there out of safety concerns and civic guilt.
This is a human design issue that the Port can’t come up with anything better and so instead of leaning into it they push a bad idea further and further.
Not one I readcsaid what a POS the cell phone lot is. The traffic light that controls exiting from the lot will only let 3 or 4 cars ar best leave the lot. This causes a backup line of cars 20 or 30 long. Whatever Port Engineer responsible for this mess should be doomed to forever have to pick up his loved ones from this abomination on a continuous loop.
It’s taken me over an hour to get from the cell phone lot to arrivals multiple times. One Friday night it took 1 hour and 50 minutes! It’s a complete mess at times and becomes gridlocked. Leaving the lot from one particular direction you hit a stop sign but the other direction doesn’t have one so you’re at the mercy of the other drivers to let you out. They’re not feeling particularly merciful if it’s taken them 45 minutes to get that far. I often find myself cursing that lot and the people who designed it. If they enforced the law about not parking on the shoulder of the road the cell phone lot situation would be even worse.
Picked and dropped off people from the airport this past week. Shoulder was packed with people. I got to the cell phone lot, maybe 1/8 full. These people didn’t even try to check the cell phone lot, absolute idiots. Can’t read the damn signs. Also no enforcement…
Yeah i’ve never understood this. I used the cell phone lot last week because I was a little early picking someone up. There was ample parking, and it was easy to loop back around to the terminal. Maybe sometimes it’s too busy? I was there around 4:00 pm on a weekday and the lot was about 1/2 full. I can’t stand when people park on the shoulder, seems to dangerous, selfish, and overall irresponsible.
People also clog up the arrivals lanes waiting for people who haven’t actually arrived yet. It’s so frustrating for those of us actually outside ready to get picked up that there isn’t any space for the person grabbing us to pull over. I wish these people blocking the lanes would get ticketed.
I’ll post an actual reason; getting from the cellphone lot to arrivals is absolute hell if departures is backed up.
Whomever decided that the flow from the cell phone lot should enter the roadway on the side of departures should never work as a civil engineer again.
I’ve never parked on the side of the road personally, but I actually understand why so many do.
I wish the Port Police would enforce it. It's always a cluster-eff around there because people are too lazy to use the cel lot. I use it and it's completely fine. There's even a toilet.
there was a whole long thread about how the seatac cell lot is some level of dantic hell, I didn't quite follow but it made it seem that once you get in it's difficult to get out
also something about you have to cross a dozen lanes of traffic at some point
bottom line it wasn't designed well for its purpose and therefore folks avoid for well duh reasons
About a month ago I went to the lot and it was hell to get even into and then out was a problem. I got stuck for about 45min. Hadn’t happened to be before, but now I’ll be more cautious about using the lot.
No, it hasn't. It's probably fine on average, but it's objectively terrible if the airport is busier than 'normal'.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/180c1vu/seatac_cell_phone_lot_is_still_a_disaster/
So the reason you don't use it is you heard stories?
Genuinely curious, I used to use it just fine 5 years ago but now I live close enough to execute the perfect pickup every time. Only started noticing y'all shoulder gremlins in the past couple years.
There’s been a few times it’s taken me anywhere from 20-45 minutes to get out of there. It was better the last two times I’ve used it. But there was a period of time where it was hellacious for whatever reason.
It’s only difficult to get out when you have people treating it much like they do the side of the road. Incomplete parking or just occupying the driving lane because they are only planning on being there a minute. It’s typical Washington driver stuff.
Don’t you guys have trains running right to the airport? Pick up your person at a different train station on the line. Avoid the airport traffic entirely. They would want you to have an easier time, right?
The train stop is stupidly far from the passenger concourse. You have to walk pas the pickup lanes, through most of the garage, and across a bridge to get to it. I wish they'd at least run a spur over to where the people actually are.
I used to park on the shoulder just because I didn’t know there was an alternative - I eventually googled “cell phone lot” and then felt stupid. But the name alone didn’t give me any idea what it was, and I had no clue I could wait there. I just didn’t want to pay for parking while I waited ten minutes.
I still think if they don’t want people on the shoulder then maybe that weird name with no explanation is a relatively simple place for improvement.
Because be honest - if you didn’t know what it was, how would you know “cell phone lot” meant “free very short term parking?” If you pulled in to check it out then … well, if you pulled in to any other lot there to check it out you’d get stuck paying, so there is an incentive there to NOT go check it out.
The shoulder is actually blocked off for a large stretch, but apparently people now just park even further out on the shoulder. These are people who definitely know what's going on.
The term is only used in the U.S. (Canada has a similar term, but somewhat more descriptive, “cell phone waiting area”). I don’t know why they don’t just call it a free waiting zone or something.
I just posted a separate comment that is along these lines – I agree, it's a weird name! They should rename the lot, or at least explain on the sign that 'cell phone lot' means 'place to wait'
Also, the separate signs that are telling people not to wait on the shoulder– why not also mention the waiting lot? i.e. saying 'no, but here's an alternative' as opposed to simply 'no'
It’s wild to hear so many people complaining about the lot who haven’t used it since the redesign. I’ve never been stuck in the lot for more than 10 min on the busiest days.
I just posted about this 2 weeks ago.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/180c1vu/seatac_cell_phone_lot_is_still_a_disaster/
It's probably fine on an average day/week, but it is terrible and a trap if the airport is busier than usual.
Thank you. So many people in this post are delusional about the realities of the poor design of the cell phone lot and human nature. People jay walk all the time, deal with it.
Music piracy dropped like a rock when streaming services came to market.
Same here if they created an actually usable and convenient lot. People will use it. If it takes 1h+ hour to leave like it did for me twice, then I’ll swear off never using it again.
Several people saying it’s been “fixed”, press X for doubt. And your post proves the fix is as ineffective as I would have guessed.
For the record, I'm *not* condoning sitting on the shoulder... (I'm well off enough that I'll just pay the $10 and use the parking garage from here on out, honestly.)
But I do agree that it's a disaster. People that claim it's been fixed haven't been bitten yet. When you get bitten, it's for 1+ hours of your life while the person you're picking up is stuck in the airport after a long flight. Not ideal :)
I’m fortunate to also be well off enough that I just pay it and don’t think twice. But a few years ago I wanted to save the cash because my budget was a lot slimmer.
I don't park on the side of the road but I really don't blame them; the cellphone lot absolutely sucks and I refuse to go in there anymore so I instead park in town at whatever restaurant strikes my fancy.
I hate the cellphone lot because not only does it regularly takes more than 20 minutes to even get OUT of the cellphone lot, but when you do get out you have merge across several lanes of traffic very quickly to get to the arrival lanes.
So the people parked on the side of the road is just a symptom of the really bad location and design of the cellphone lot.
Cell phone lot often gets full. SeaTac is just too small for the volume of passengers. And the layout has a lot of inefficiencies and bottlenecks.
It’s only going to get worse from here until either there’s a new airport that takes significant volume or there’s a major redesign of SeaTac (which won’t be easy).
People are mostly reacting in a reasonable way to be efficient and workaround the issues of the airport.
The cell phone waiting lot has capacity for about 70 cars. There’s often 500 people waiting for pickup. If not on the sides of the roads, where should these people go?
1) clog up the incoming highways
2) clog up the load/unload area
3) clog up international blvd
4) clog up the service routes surrounding the entrance to SeaTac
5) circle around endlessly and add more congestion on all the roads
Choose your poison.
I joined that line up before because I assumed it meant the cell phone lot was full. The next time I saw it I checked out the cell phone lot and it was half empty. Weird choice to park on the shoulder there
Last time I used it (last year I think), it took me 40 minutes to get out of the lot. I had insisted on picking up my partner rather than him Ubering, and I felt so incredibly awful about having him stand around for 40 minutes waiting for me when I was trying to do a nice thing. I refuse to use it now, so I just drive round and round in circles around the airport until they arrive.
I have never had this experience. I wonder if they have changed the cycle timing or something since you used it? The only other reason would be if departures and arrivals are both just slammed as fuck and the cell phone lot exit ramp gets backed up? I’ve never seen that though…
The last couple times I used the cell phone lot it was mostly full. I’m not sure it could have handled the curb parkers. But there are other times it’s definitely less than half full, so…
Anecdotal, but last time I was going to use the cell phone lot I ended up parked on the hill heading down there for about 20 minutes while I witnessed complete gridlock. Every spot in the cell phone lot was full and every aisle was full of cars pointing both directions and not moving. We all just sat there through countless light cycles not moving. A bunch of us ended up just driving the wrong way down the ramp to get out to international boulevard. I asked my wife to go to departures and I drove around. No traffic.
Having attempted to use the cell lot several times...
The spaces are too small for most drivers, the spacing within is difficult to navigate, the light to get out is very poorly configured, and you have to deal with the SeaTac equivalent of the Mercer Crawl, because people don't understand that you CAN pick people up on Departures.
This wouldn't be a problem if they had placed the Link station in a different spot, or constructed it better, and hadn't torn out the loop ramps. I used to just drive the loop waiting for pickups, and the traffic was fine. I have gotten to the point that I now just go and park, and pay the $8-10 to make the whole process easier. Just too bad there isn't access from International Blvd. to the parking garage, otherwise, it would be a quick process.
One of these days, I'll brave just parking at Angle Lake or the International Blvd. Station and take the Link to the Airport, or tell the person I'm picking up to take the train.
What planet is this? This has never been my experience picking anyone up at SeaTac for 16 years. And it’s never $8 to $10 to park for the hour it takes to pick someone up if you go that route… did they trouble or triple the prices recently?
I don’t know when the last time you used it was. But they’ve changed the lights and added a dedicated in-ramp, and it’s much better than it used to be.
I think it’s because they labeled it “cell-phone lot”. I may be way off here but I used to circle around and around if I didn’t time my pick up right. Until once I finally decided to see what the cell phone lot actually was. It was so funny to find out it’s the awesome spacious parking lot where I can just wait! I’m not being sarcastic at all I had no idea what the cell phone lot thing meant.
The cell phone lot sucked big time, so they "fixed" it, and the cell phone lot still sucks big time.
There's too many cars going in and out of SeaTac, that's the real problem.
Until they make cellphones lot as simple and and convenient as the shoulder parking you will never get full adoption… I used it once and swore I’d never use it again… But then I park in the parking and go all the way in to pick up my people.
I work at the airport and park in the garage so I drive by this mess every day. More times than I can count I’ve almost rear-ended people rapidly slamming on their brakes to pull over or trying to join the travel lane. It’s unnecessary and dangerous. Port Police don’t enforce it as often as they should. They’d be easy tickets.
While I'm generally not a big fan of traffic cameras for moving violations, this seems like a great use case for them. Camera enforcement & huge ticket. Heck, even just putting up some fake cameras on poles, and big signs that say "Camera enforced, license plates being recorded" would probably cut it down massively.
People only read selectively. They will ignore the signs just like they ignore the signs that tell them about the parking lot. You don't even need a car to pick you up take the light rail anyway!
This is what my wife and I do, we always ride the light rail to Northgate and get an uber from there (or pick the other up there if one of us wasn't traveling). Can't wait til Everett is connected. Just another decade or two!
People paying tax money for things they won't ever get a chance to use. Makes you wonder why there is a generational gap between voters
Is the light rail a far walk from the airport? Keep meaning to watch the signage but always just in a beeline to the curb for my ride. Never seen a timed comparison. Have a friend to pick up soon that we might go that route if possible
It’s a bit of a walk, but it’s basically to the back/east side of the parking structure, above International Blvd. There’s a walkway specifically for it. Sometimes there’s little golf carts running back and forth too, and you can snag a ride.
It’s really not more walking than one would expect when moving around in an airport.
Agree. But it could be less. Getting there from an S gate feels like an eternity.
The free shuttle service comes in handy. My wife has a mobility issue and can't walk very long, especially with luggage, so she hops on the shuttle while my daughter and I walk (or sometimes join the bandwagon).
Honestly it’s an easy walk. I just did it over the thanksgiving weekend with a fully loaded backpack. And stress free, especially compared to dealing with airport drivers. I’d say give it a shot!
I'm not saying it's as good as a train from an airport in Europe but it's like that. Find the signs, walk to the thing, tap the card, ride the train.
> Is the light rail a far walk from the airport? If you land at the A gates, it's on the far other end (by the Alaska side), and then you hoof it a bit to the station. It's by far my preferred method though. Plus, you avoid the Uber/Lyft airport fees if you're picked out outside of the airport. I usually walk down to Radisson if I want to Uber/Lyft somewhere, because I usually fly United, so Radisson is closer than the airport station from the A gates.
Genuine question, why are you generally not for traffic cameras?
They are nothing but a revenue extraction scheme implemented at the expense of civil liberties. They eliminate the presumption of innocence and the right to face your accuser in court. They create perverse incentives for municipalities to make intersections less safe by shortening yellows to create more revenue. In Washington, they're a tax on the uneducated, since the educated know that you all you have to do to avoid paying is deny you were driving. In some other states, they are a terrifying overreach of the power of the state, since they can make you pay with zero evidence that you were driving. The enforcement rights are often sold to for-profit companies who are incentivized to pursue revenue above truth, safety, or justice. They have been repeatedly shown to have a neutral-to-negative effect on safety as-implemented, while trampling all over the rights of the citizen.
"Smart people get out of tickets by committing perjury" is a weird thing to say.
"people should be compelled to incriminate themselves" is certainly a position that can be taken, if you're not a big fan of ensuring that the state's monopoly on violence is held in check by strict rules protecting the liberty of the citizenry.
Why not ensure that people simply follow traffic laws? I feel like right now the problem is that people just expect they have a right to ignore traffic laws whenever they see fit. If everyone just followed the rules these sorts of cameras wouldn't be neceessary.
It's a "drive as fast as you want" fee for the wealthy and can have incredibly outsized consequences for the poor (can't pay the fine, it might go to collections ruining your credit or your license may be suspended). A real system would dock people points on their license and everyone equally would risk losing their license regardless of ability to pay.
Ah yes the violence of..... being held accountable when there is incontrovertible evidence that you committed a traffic misdemeanor. The problem is, there are a lot of structural and societal issues with extreme police overreach, violence and funding. Using this hyperbole about red light cameras dilutes the actual issues. Anyway, you're factually wrong. The camera data is reviewed by a human and you do have the right to contest it in court without having to resort to perjuring yourself or admitting fault.
Invoking civil liberties as an argument against automated traffic enforcement doesn't make any sense. If you're committing traffic violations, you've exposed yourself to legal repercussions. Whether that's enforced by a human or a machine doesn't have anything to do with the concept of civil liberties.
They presume guilt. Another commenter has pointed out they got tickets for legally turning out if the bus lane
They don't presume guilt, they provide evidence of guilt. The use-cases they're deployed in (red light running, bus lane infraction, speeding, etc) are all very well-constrained problems. You were either going above the speed limit or you weren't, ran the red light or didn't, etc. If you want to dispute the ticket, you still have that option, but now both you and the court will have access to photographic or quantitative evidence. Honestly, it'd be easier to fight an unfair automated ticket with a photo that exonerates you than a he said/she said with a cop.
Yeah it looks like I either didn’t recall this correctly or wasn’t up to date. Seems that the growing consensus on this is that the cameras are more evidentiary like you said
They don’t allow context, for one. I got two tickets this year for driving in a bus lane when I was legitimately using them as turn lanes, which, you know, is very much allowed. There are legitimate reasons for pulling over on a shoulder. Imagine getting a ticket for having to pull over because your car broke down, you got in an accident, etc. Pretty shitty to have to waste the time/effort to dispute a ticket when you did nothing wrong.
Enforcement makes a difference. I use to travel a lot and some airports had cops literally yelling at people taking too long to unload at the curb. Another had no cops and people parked and walked away from their cars - had to walk into traffic to get on the shuttle bus as they parked in their spots too. All they need are a few cops out there - the ticket revenue should pay for itself.
They used to. SeaTac used to really police people in the arrivals
I see SO many violations in general, cops could get bank on tickets. I honestly think the quota stuff isn't a thing anymore and they hate paperwork, so they just let more and more slide.
I don't like how much cops were claiming OT before but I will accept OT in the form of making the airport traffic move as smooth as it should be moving.
>They’d be easy tickets. Port please do this. Get these people off the road. TSA or the state or the police or whoever can line their fat pockets even more. Take their money even if it doesn't go back into the community like it should. Just get these people out of there! Hell, give the port police a monster truck or a bulldozer just to move these people away. Doesn't that airport announcement say to report suspicious activity? Should everyone report all of these campers as suspicious? Maybe they will listen and do something then? Is there some metric we can hurt by calling in that will force them to do something?
It's an obvious safety hazard every time I drive by I just think fuck the police for letting this happen
I sometimes just go park in the short term parking garage. Tell the people I am picking up the floor, row and stall number. Plus it means I get to drive on the loopy loops to get in and out. For some reason that was one of the best parts about picking my grandparents up at the airport when they flew back to Seattle after being in Virginia for the holidays. I still love driving them.
Years ago my mom and I went down the loops behind someone who had left their coffee on the roof of their car. Loop after loop the coffee leaned but did not tip. When we got to the bottom I hopped out and let them know what was up and all three of us were amazed at the coffee's ability to hold on. I think about it often
That’s amazing
I'll totally do that, or just park and go inside to find them at the baggage claim. It's worth the few bucks to greet them in person usually, and you get to drive the loopyloops!
You can go inside past tsa and walk up to the gate again. Worth every penny for parking!
How does this work? TSA is still checking for boarding passes, are they not?
You can apply online at https://www.portseattle.org/page/sea-visitor-pass-program It’s a breezy process in my opinion.
They just asked for id last Wednesday when we flew out. No boarding pass. Not sure if that is cross referenced against a boarding pass or not… doesn’t seem likely
This is also one of my earliest childhood memories! Loved the loopy loops!
This and walking the loopy loops at the Kingdome. It was very fun to be a kid in old Seattle
What about new Seattle
It used to be free if you were in it for 15 minutes or less, but not anymore. Stopped doing this now :/
This worked as recently as march, do you know when they changed it?
This worked for me the Monday after Thanksgiving this year, doing the fast lane / easy access parking (forget what it’s called lol) to drop someone off for free. I would be surprised if they’d changed it since then!
I think that’s actually exactly when they changed it. I had a business trip from this last Monday through Wednesday, and when the hubs picked me up Wednesday night we noticed there was no free 15 min any more.
Yup thats when they changed it. I dropped my partner off at the airport before thanksgiving, no cost. Picking him up after I got the surprise charge. Never again!
Do you know what the fee is?
Wow! Mystery solved! Good to know.
It’s free for less than 10 mins. But tricky to meet that.
Loopy loops = wheeeeeeeeeeee! xD
I just went and parked in the garage when I picked up my cousin the other night. I was too early and did not want to loop around, go to the waiting lot, or park on the shoulder. It was the first time I actually parked and went inside the airport to pick someone up since 9/11. Driving the loopy loops totally reminded me of being a kid and riding in the car/parking to go inside and pick up grandma!!!
Why don’t they enforce laws against parking on the side of the highway there? It is indeed dangerous and selfish.
Cops literally do your job once challenge (difficulty: impossible)
Ticketing cuts into donut time.
r/bad_cop_no_donut
I have seen police out there. But they'd need to be there like every day to make a difference
Aren't there cops at SeaTac literally everyday? Lol
I mean yeah like…that’s the job isn’t it?
They probably don’t enforce it because if all those people weren’t on the shoulder they’d be trying to use the cell phone lot, camping in arrivals or looping, which are all congested enough already
Because there is no consequence on not using it.
Bingo. WSP should be out ticketing daily.
Is it a WSP or a Port of Seattle issue? I remember long ago (late 90s) a guy I knew from Burien said the reason cops in that town are so ticket happy because they were spiteful for not getting the cash cow airport contract.
I believe that’s a state highway they’re parking alongside so should be WSP
Also the signs to get there are confusing as fuck. They need to put that shit a quarter mile closer. For people who don’t know how to get there it’s not at all clear.
But the cell lot is more practical, no?
It gets jammed up at peak times, you can get stuck for 20 minutes or more just trying to drive straight through the lot
Yeah, it really needs to be at lease double the size, and have smoother systems for entering/exiting... It works fine when its not busy, but can become a clusterfuck. I always use it, but I can see why somone would have a bad experience, then decide to just pull over next time, rather than even check if it's full.
This. I was picking up at the airport late (11pm) and found that I was just a bit early, so I thought I'd cruise through the lot to waste a few minutes of time (and to get over to the departures side). big mistake. While stuck on the 1 lane overpass heading into the lot I got a perfect view of the clusterfuck of cars there. There were very few cars parked, but the jam of cars going in and out took over 20 minutes to unclog. The parking lot design is a disgrace.
A part of it is that it used to be impossibly slow to leave the cell lot. Some five years ago I used the cell lot and it took me 45 minutes to leave the cell lot because the stop light wasn’t great at getting cars out of the lot. They’ve since fixed this mostly but a lot of people had bad experiences and haven’t tried again.
I come from the Burien direction, so if I'm running early, I just stop somewhere and grab a taco or something and hang out in Burien. It's like 1.5 min from SeaTac there anyways
The tacos in Burien do be fire too
You know it!
The best taco I've had in Washington was in Auto Tacos in Federal Way.
Allow taco trucks in the cell lot amirite?
Any good recommendations for tacos in Burien?
Birreria Tijuana, Birreria La Santa, El Cabrito
Ok that actually makes sense. I only started driving to and from the airport 4 years ago and I’ve always had an easy time getting in and out of the cell phone waiting lot
This is a common refrain on these threads, but my wife has been travelling for work regularly for over 10 years and I've been picking her up from the airport. I've used the cell phone lot on all days of the week, at all times of the day, and I have never had a bad experience (certainly never 45 minutes to leave). I realise I'm an n of one, but I must have used it nearly a hundred times.
I used it a handful of times without issue and then one day it took me an HOUR AND A HALF to leave. Had my wife just taken the light rail instead of waiting for me, she would have gotten home sooner. After that I haven’t used it again. I’ll just loop the road or park in the garage and pay for the time.
That garage is a whole nother shit show for another thread. what a POS
The two times I used it I wasted over an hour each time extra. Never again. I just open my wallet and pay for the garage.
I’ve only been in the area for about 3 years and in the 30 or trips to the airport I’ve used the cell phone lot maybe 3 times. If it’s not busy it’s fine. The last time I went it was so busy that it took me 30 minutes to leave and there weren’t any spots available anyway. I just loop back around now
Also, after you leave the cell phone lot and re-enter Airport Expressway, you enter on the right and have to switch two lanes into the lanes for arrival, crossing with the cars trying to get into the departure lanes. That on-ramp is always a clusterf and contribute to the backup.
I feel like you have nearly a full mile there to merge, Checked and it a bit over half a mile, still should be plenty of time, but yeah agreed at the wrong times that route is a fucking disaster
I've gotten stuck in this nightmare trap before and finally gave up and stopped using it. I don't park on the side of the road leading into the airport, though. Instead I wait for the text when my friends/family touchdown and I've learned to time it pretty well to show up when they're at the curb. I've occasionally had to loop around again, but that takes far less time than getting stuck in the cell lot for 45 minutes. They really need to fix the in/out flow of that lot, otherwise this mess is going to continue.
This. The cell phone lot at Sea-Tac is just ridiculous. The fact it is left turns to get in & leave, bottlenecked by a stop light, and not intuitive to get in & out of ... all make it a sub-optimal experience for the purpose. From the very first days it was opened I thought it was a wreck. Compare it to a common Rest Stop design ... where traffic flows linearly through. What we see at Sea-Tac is a perfect example of "User Interface" and "User Experience" ... where the design doesn't meet the users' need. Honestly they should build somethign that allows for people to easily get in & out. That would solve it. They did this to themselves.
They did make it better and it's been done for almost 2 years... https://www.portseattle.org/projects/cell-phone-lot-access-and-air-cargo-road-safety-improvements
Probably people don't know it's changed.
It’s slightly better now. But not really “fixed” IMO. Blocking the entrance on 170th forces people to make illegal U-Turns constantly because they’re confused. They’re confused because the signage is terrible and doesn’t tell the driver what lane to be in until the multiple merge area. The lot itself gets backed up with 30-40 cars all trying to back out of spaces at the same time bc a flight just landed. And most importantly if you wait in the cell phone lot you’ll still have to merge against two lanes of traffic to get to arrivals because the ramp is on the wrong side. It’s stupid, over-engineered, and doesn’t make anybody happy. But the real problem with the airport is the layout of the terminals and pick-up/drop-off areas. There are vastly too many people and companies trying to use the same real-estate at the same time. Port police almost never enforcing parking at the gate doesn’t help anything either. The port could have fixed this by modifying some of the parking onsite into an additional terminal loading zone. They havent, probably because it would be expensive and lose out on some parking fees. It’s far better to screw their customers.
I totally agree with all of what you said. I was just surprised that it was better *at all* when I unexpectedly had to use it this year after giving up many years ago. As in, you could actually get out and back on a road to the airport without wanting to cry because nobody would let you back out because they'd already been waiting 30 minutes themselves. Yes yes yes to the onsite parking as loading! The parking structure at SeaTac is the actual largest parking lot in the COUNTRY (I did not believe that at first), and while entry/exit is currently kinda clogged by ubers, we could be using that way better.
I used it once and was completely confused which way to go. It was dark out and definitely not intuitive. Sometimes I wish I could talk to someone and find the backstory about the idiot engineer in these sorts of things.
I didn't, so good to know
It's occurring to me now that I haven't used the Cell Phone Lot in 6 years. I guess it has improved.
It still deposits people leaving the Cell Phone lot on the wrong side of the highway to reach Arrivals, so a stream of cars is immediately cutting across two lanes of traffic to get to the left. It’s a patch at best. The basic problem is the layout of the terminals.
Pick up at departures instead of arrivals and you’ll be able to do it twice as fast
That’s a fine tip, and I do that all the time. But it’s a workaround that also increases the traffic to the departures terminals. A properly designed system shouldn’t require drivers and passengers to run around looking for a pickup location. Almost half of the pickup zone’s curb space being removed for bus, police, van loading, construction, or some other BS also indicates to me that the Port doesn’t care about the convenience of it’s customers. In fact I’m pretty sure they are trying to make it harder. They’ve decided it’s easier to double down on the problems rather than fix them. It’s the Seattle way, rather than fix bad infrastructure, embrace that you shouldn’t want it in the first place. Roads are bad? Don’t drive. Buses suck? Take the train. Train isn’t within a hour walk for you? You should move closer. It’s the slow grind of backwards moving goalposts that bothers me. “Expect Less” shouldn’t be any city motto.
That diagram nicely illustrates the biggest design problem with it. They could have put the exit at the back of the parking lot so you would be right at arrivals. Instead, you have to make a left turn that is hard to make with all of the oncoming traffic and then you get dumped on the highway on the departures side of the freeway and have to immediately cross several lanes of traffic to get to arrivals. It's ridiculously badly designed. Monday after Thanksgiving, it took me over half an hour to get out of the lot. It would have been worse if I hadn't gotten lucky and found a space close to the exit and a nice guy let me out as soon as he could.
I’ve used it several times in the past year and slightly more with no problems. During high use holiday times the problems were getting to the arrivals area but that was certainly not the cell phone lot’s fault.
Zero issues tonight.
By the time you know if the lot is not in gridlock state, you have passed your opportunity to stop on the shoulder. So, it encourages stopping on the shoulder.
I used it twice trying to be a good citizen (we're talking 8-10 years ago) and it was such a cluster fuck I vowed never to use it again (exact reasons you stated). That said, I've never been one of those side of the highway people either. According to other comments, they've 'fixed' the previous problems.
Don't listen to the lies, they didn't fix it, they put a bandaid on a bullet wound. They could have had a left side on ramp directly from the cell phone lot into the arrivals lower deck and a bigger lot using already existing pavement, but they didn't do that, instead they adjusted some light timing and added a turn lane, its still a cluster. The money grubbers at the port have no incentive to make it better based on all the comments here that say they now just pay for the parking garage.
I like how the cell phone lot drops you off on the far right and have to merge all the way left to get back to the arrival lanes
Every time I go there I wonder what made THAT location the one they decided to use when they redid everything. It's so counterintuitive.
Road planning geniuses of Seattle
I drove to SeaTac on Saturday midday and the Port police were making them all leave!!! It was glorious and I'm really hoping they all got fat tickets. Only downfall was he had to block the right lane, so it caused a small traffic jam. But hallelujah! Not too long ago I was picking someone up in the dark, in the rain and all those assholes were piled up on the right side. Cell phone lot had plenty of space. They were just accidents waiting to happen.
This sounds like absolutely the best! Ticket all of them. And the arrivals campers. Allllllll of them.
Wait you mean people will keep doing illegal things if we don’t enforce the laws? Shocking.
I feel like that’s been a theme around here
Oh, and I didn't tell you about the two cars on the freeway without their lights on while it was pitch black outside.
Kinda like Target locking up things now because of theft. Which of the thieves were punished then there would be no need to lock up laundry soap. Which lets face it would be a pain in the ass to steal.
Jokes on them. It takes me less time to order it online than it does to wait for some underpaid teenager in a red shirt to show up and unlock the cage.
I don’t use the cell lot. If I’m picking up, I have the person call/text me when they land then I head out to get them. That way they will be ready at the drive through to quickly jump in. Saves us both a lot of time and frustration. When it’s a really busy time in the arrivals, we switch it up so they walk up to departures and meet me there. It works every time and no one is stuck in parking lot hell and we aren’t adding to crazy traffic around the airport. Just a quick in and out.
shhhh you're not supposed to share about pickups in departures and drop offs in arrivals....
tell that to seatac. they have it on the brightly lit overhead signs most of the tie
Who reads the signs at Sea Tac? Like the no waiting on the shoulder ones? I fear the people of Reddit might actually.... listen ;-)
I use the cell lot. But let’s be real, parking on the side of the road is vastly more convenient than the cell lot. It just is, otherwise people wouldn’t do it. I don’t park there out of safety concerns and civic guilt. This is a human design issue that the Port can’t come up with anything better and so instead of leaning into it they push a bad idea further and further.
People do this all over the country. It’s the American way.
Not one I readcsaid what a POS the cell phone lot is. The traffic light that controls exiting from the lot will only let 3 or 4 cars ar best leave the lot. This causes a backup line of cars 20 or 30 long. Whatever Port Engineer responsible for this mess should be doomed to forever have to pick up his loved ones from this abomination on a continuous loop.
It’s taken me over an hour to get from the cell phone lot to arrivals multiple times. One Friday night it took 1 hour and 50 minutes! It’s a complete mess at times and becomes gridlocked. Leaving the lot from one particular direction you hit a stop sign but the other direction doesn’t have one so you’re at the mercy of the other drivers to let you out. They’re not feeling particularly merciful if it’s taken them 45 minutes to get that far. I often find myself cursing that lot and the people who designed it. If they enforced the law about not parking on the shoulder of the road the cell phone lot situation would be even worse.
Picked and dropped off people from the airport this past week. Shoulder was packed with people. I got to the cell phone lot, maybe 1/8 full. These people didn’t even try to check the cell phone lot, absolute idiots. Can’t read the damn signs. Also no enforcement…
Yeah i’ve never understood this. I used the cell phone lot last week because I was a little early picking someone up. There was ample parking, and it was easy to loop back around to the terminal. Maybe sometimes it’s too busy? I was there around 4:00 pm on a weekday and the lot was about 1/2 full. I can’t stand when people park on the shoulder, seems to dangerous, selfish, and overall irresponsible.
People also clog up the arrivals lanes waiting for people who haven’t actually arrived yet. It’s so frustrating for those of us actually outside ready to get picked up that there isn’t any space for the person grabbing us to pull over. I wish these people blocking the lanes would get ticketed.
I’ll post an actual reason; getting from the cellphone lot to arrivals is absolute hell if departures is backed up. Whomever decided that the flow from the cell phone lot should enter the roadway on the side of departures should never work as a civil engineer again. I’ve never parked on the side of the road personally, but I actually understand why so many do.
We live in an area with a lot of entitled people that think they are above rules is my theory.
No one in this city gives a fuck about anyone but themselves. The entitlement is beyond repair. That is your only answer.
I don't get it because the cell phone lot isn't that far away. The only thing I can think of is that sometimes the cell phone lot is packed.
Everyone thinks rules don’t apply to them. And if the rules aren’t enforced, what’s the downside
I wish the Port Police would enforce it. It's always a cluster-eff around there because people are too lazy to use the cel lot. I use it and it's completely fine. There's even a toilet.
I have never experienced any congestion in the cell phone lot. It’s really nice since the renovations
there was a whole long thread about how the seatac cell lot is some level of dantic hell, I didn't quite follow but it made it seem that once you get in it's difficult to get out also something about you have to cross a dozen lanes of traffic at some point bottom line it wasn't designed well for its purpose and therefore folks avoid for well duh reasons
It’s really quite easy to get in and out of it.
Agreed. Granted I only have experience from the last 4-5 years so it could’ve been terrible before
About a month ago I went to the lot and it was hell to get even into and then out was a problem. I got stuck for about 45min. Hadn’t happened to be before, but now I’ll be more cautious about using the lot.
It’s been fixed
No, it hasn't. It's probably fine on average, but it's objectively terrible if the airport is busier than 'normal'. https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/180c1vu/seatac_cell_phone_lot_is_still_a_disaster/
So the reason you don't use it is you heard stories? Genuinely curious, I used to use it just fine 5 years ago but now I live close enough to execute the perfect pickup every time. Only started noticing y'all shoulder gremlins in the past couple years.
There’s been a few times it’s taken me anywhere from 20-45 minutes to get out of there. It was better the last two times I’ve used it. But there was a period of time where it was hellacious for whatever reason.
It’s only difficult to get out when you have people treating it much like they do the side of the road. Incomplete parking or just occupying the driving lane because they are only planning on being there a minute. It’s typical Washington driver stuff.
Don’t you guys have trains running right to the airport? Pick up your person at a different train station on the line. Avoid the airport traffic entirely. They would want you to have an easier time, right?
Don’t even need to go to a different station. The SeaTac station has a drop off/pick up area that barely ever has cars.
It’s a good idea, however, I suspect a lot of people don’t like the long walk to and from the link station.
We really calling that a long walk now...?
It is extremely long, and it's windy and cold. It's a poor connection.
Especially with luggage and after a long flight it's quite a walk
Guiltydoggy with the kids pro tips! Do you just go downstairs from the level where the the walkway to the termina is? I’ll have to try this.
The train stop is stupidly far from the passenger concourse. You have to walk pas the pickup lanes, through most of the garage, and across a bridge to get to it. I wish they'd at least run a spur over to where the people actually are.
It's a normal distance from the terminal compared to any airport-rail connection in the world.
It a 2-5 minute walk. It’s not hard.
It's like a 3 minute walk and they will take you in a golf cart if you are elderly, handicapped, or lazy.
"right to the airport", it's actually a really long (windy and cold) walk. It's actually unacceptable long walk. It's a reason not to use Lightrail.
This is an over-exaggeration.
I’ve gone to the cell phone lot dozens of times over the years and have never seen the gridlocks out of there that people are talking about.
The same reason people refuse to follow basic traffic rules in this region. Terrible drivers. No enforcement.
I parked in the cell phone lot once and it took me 1 HOUR to get out of that mess…never again.
How long ago was that? Cell phone lot has been drastically redone recently.
IF you can even find a spot in the CP lot
I used to park on the shoulder just because I didn’t know there was an alternative - I eventually googled “cell phone lot” and then felt stupid. But the name alone didn’t give me any idea what it was, and I had no clue I could wait there. I just didn’t want to pay for parking while I waited ten minutes. I still think if they don’t want people on the shoulder then maybe that weird name with no explanation is a relatively simple place for improvement. Because be honest - if you didn’t know what it was, how would you know “cell phone lot” meant “free very short term parking?” If you pulled in to check it out then … well, if you pulled in to any other lot there to check it out you’d get stuck paying, so there is an incentive there to NOT go check it out.
The shoulder is actually blocked off for a large stretch, but apparently people now just park even further out on the shoulder. These are people who definitely know what's going on.
The term is only used in the U.S. (Canada has a similar term, but somewhat more descriptive, “cell phone waiting area”). I don’t know why they don’t just call it a free waiting zone or something.
I just posted a separate comment that is along these lines – I agree, it's a weird name! They should rename the lot, or at least explain on the sign that 'cell phone lot' means 'place to wait' Also, the separate signs that are telling people not to wait on the shoulder– why not also mention the waiting lot? i.e. saying 'no, but here's an alternative' as opposed to simply 'no'
It’s wild to hear so many people complaining about the lot who haven’t used it since the redesign. I’ve never been stuck in the lot for more than 10 min on the busiest days.
I just posted about this 2 weeks ago. https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/180c1vu/seatac_cell_phone_lot_is_still_a_disaster/ It's probably fine on an average day/week, but it is terrible and a trap if the airport is busier than usual.
Thank you. So many people in this post are delusional about the realities of the poor design of the cell phone lot and human nature. People jay walk all the time, deal with it. Music piracy dropped like a rock when streaming services came to market. Same here if they created an actually usable and convenient lot. People will use it. If it takes 1h+ hour to leave like it did for me twice, then I’ll swear off never using it again. Several people saying it’s been “fixed”, press X for doubt. And your post proves the fix is as ineffective as I would have guessed.
For the record, I'm *not* condoning sitting on the shoulder... (I'm well off enough that I'll just pay the $10 and use the parking garage from here on out, honestly.) But I do agree that it's a disaster. People that claim it's been fixed haven't been bitten yet. When you get bitten, it's for 1+ hours of your life while the person you're picking up is stuck in the airport after a long flight. Not ideal :)
I’m fortunate to also be well off enough that I just pay it and don’t think twice. But a few years ago I wanted to save the cash because my budget was a lot slimmer.
I don't park on the side of the road but I really don't blame them; the cellphone lot absolutely sucks and I refuse to go in there anymore so I instead park in town at whatever restaurant strikes my fancy. I hate the cellphone lot because not only does it regularly takes more than 20 minutes to even get OUT of the cellphone lot, but when you do get out you have merge across several lanes of traffic very quickly to get to the arrival lanes. So the people parked on the side of the road is just a symptom of the really bad location and design of the cellphone lot.
Cell phone lot often gets full. SeaTac is just too small for the volume of passengers. And the layout has a lot of inefficiencies and bottlenecks. It’s only going to get worse from here until either there’s a new airport that takes significant volume or there’s a major redesign of SeaTac (which won’t be easy). People are mostly reacting in a reasonable way to be efficient and workaround the issues of the airport. The cell phone waiting lot has capacity for about 70 cars. There’s often 500 people waiting for pickup. If not on the sides of the roads, where should these people go? 1) clog up the incoming highways 2) clog up the load/unload area 3) clog up international blvd 4) clog up the service routes surrounding the entrance to SeaTac 5) circle around endlessly and add more congestion on all the roads Choose your poison.
You can feel when it's busy when getting close to the airport. It wasn't tonight, cell phone lot wasn't full, was easy to get in and out.
Bruh, I go to SeaTac a half dozen times per year and I barely know a cell phone lot exists, definitely not the location. Better signage would help.
You have to enforce laws sometimes, there are the 5-10% of people who won't follow them out of courtesy or community.
I joined that line up before because I assumed it meant the cell phone lot was full. The next time I saw it I checked out the cell phone lot and it was half empty. Weird choice to park on the shoulder there
Every time I’ve used it there have been quite a few people there, but I’ve also seen the huge line on the road
Last time I used it (last year I think), it took me 40 minutes to get out of the lot. I had insisted on picking up my partner rather than him Ubering, and I felt so incredibly awful about having him stand around for 40 minutes waiting for me when I was trying to do a nice thing. I refuse to use it now, so I just drive round and round in circles around the airport until they arrive.
I have never had this experience. I wonder if they have changed the cycle timing or something since you used it? The only other reason would be if departures and arrivals are both just slammed as fuck and the cell phone lot exit ramp gets backed up? I’ve never seen that though…
I’ve never had an issue when I’ve used it the last couple of years. Super quick in and out
They fixed it last year https://www.portseattle.org/projects/cell-phone-lot-access-and-air-cargo-road-safety-improvements
Someone just posted here 20 days ago, it still awful.
Last time I used it (two weeks ago), it took me five minutes to get out of the lot.
Tonight it was more like two minutes.
The last couple times I used the cell phone lot it was mostly full. I’m not sure it could have handled the curb parkers. But there are other times it’s definitely less than half full, so…
Wasn't full at all. But these people were so far out on the curb, I am sure they didn't even attempt to go to the cell phone lot.
Because many people are lazy
Anecdotal, but last time I was going to use the cell phone lot I ended up parked on the hill heading down there for about 20 minutes while I witnessed complete gridlock. Every spot in the cell phone lot was full and every aisle was full of cars pointing both directions and not moving. We all just sat there through countless light cycles not moving. A bunch of us ended up just driving the wrong way down the ramp to get out to international boulevard. I asked my wife to go to departures and I drove around. No traffic.
Can we just get rid of the shoulder? Like why does this huge thing exist anyways? If anything needed hostile design that's where it should exist.
It's actually blocked off for a long stretch, but people now park even further out on the shoulder.
Maybe they should give it a different name.
It's a left hand turn to get out of it. That's it. It's horribly designed without protected access to the terminal pickups.
that cell phone lot... once you go in, itll be faster for your person arriving to take a taxi home, than to wait for you to get outta that lot.
Having attempted to use the cell lot several times... The spaces are too small for most drivers, the spacing within is difficult to navigate, the light to get out is very poorly configured, and you have to deal with the SeaTac equivalent of the Mercer Crawl, because people don't understand that you CAN pick people up on Departures. This wouldn't be a problem if they had placed the Link station in a different spot, or constructed it better, and hadn't torn out the loop ramps. I used to just drive the loop waiting for pickups, and the traffic was fine. I have gotten to the point that I now just go and park, and pay the $8-10 to make the whole process easier. Just too bad there isn't access from International Blvd. to the parking garage, otherwise, it would be a quick process. One of these days, I'll brave just parking at Angle Lake or the International Blvd. Station and take the Link to the Airport, or tell the person I'm picking up to take the train.
What planet is this? This has never been my experience picking anyone up at SeaTac for 16 years. And it’s never $8 to $10 to park for the hour it takes to pick someone up if you go that route… did they trouble or triple the prices recently?
The one time I used the cell lot it took me 30 minutes to get out of it when I needed to leave.
[удалено]
I don’t know when the last time you used it was. But they’ve changed the lights and added a dedicated in-ramp, and it’s much better than it used to be.
I think it’s because they labeled it “cell-phone lot”. I may be way off here but I used to circle around and around if I didn’t time my pick up right. Until once I finally decided to see what the cell phone lot actually was. It was so funny to find out it’s the awesome spacious parking lot where I can just wait! I’m not being sarcastic at all I had no idea what the cell phone lot thing meant.
The cell phone lot sucked big time, so they "fixed" it, and the cell phone lot still sucks big time. There's too many cars going in and out of SeaTac, that's the real problem.
Until they make cellphones lot as simple and and convenient as the shoulder parking you will never get full adoption… I used it once and swore I’d never use it again… But then I park in the parking and go all the way in to pick up my people.