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The first online-only news site in state history to get media credentials to cover the state capitol and Seattle city hall, PubliCola has been called a “must-read” by the Seattle Post Intelligencer and a hot “New Media Mover and Shaker” by Seattle Magazine—which also cited our own Erica C. Barnett as the city's No. 1 news nerd.

New Parking Rates All Over the Map

2011 Election   September 28, 2011 at 4:44 pm Erica C. Barnett

As part of his 2012 budget, Mayor Mike McGinn has proposed tweaking on-street meter parking rates from the levels adopted earlier this year—increasing rates in some neighborhoods, decreasing them in others, and keeping them the same in others—and tweaking the hours for paid parking in several neighborhoods. (None of those changes requires city council approval, unless McGinn wants to raise rates above the council-approved $4 hourly maximum.)

Next year, PubliCola hears, McGinn could ask the city council for permission to charge for parking on Sundays and to charge seasonal parking rates, starting at the Ballard Locks. Seattle Department of Transportation parking operations manager Mike Estey says neither proposal is on the table in the short term or as part of McGinn’s budget.

Overall, the new parking rates are fairly minor, with some small upticks and downticks and tweaks to the hours paid parking is required. My main observation from this data is that, when it comes to looking for parking, people aren’t very logical (or they’re very lazy): Utilization rates are dramatically higher on major thoroughfares like NW Market in Ballard and University Way NE in the U District than they are just a block or two away, meaning that people are overcrowding major roads (and wasting time searching for parking on those roads) instead of driving a block away where parking is readily available.

Here’s a look at the new parking rates, along with the rate of parking utilization (how many spaces are full) by neighborhood, with changes in bold:

12th Avenue
Full spaces: 57% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Ballard Core
Full spaces: 88% Price: $2.00, up from $1.50 Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Ballard Edge
Full spaces: 38% Price: Same, at $1.50 Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 2

Ballard Locks
Full spaces: 59% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 3 hours

Belltown North
Full spaces: 36% Price: Same, at $2/hr Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 2

Belltown South
Full spaces: 63% Price: $2.50/hr, up from $2 Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Capitol Hill Core
Full spaces: 86% Price: Same, at $3/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Capitol Hill Edge
Full spaces: 38% Price: $2.50, down from $3 Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Cherry Hill
Full spaces: 87% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Chinatown/International District
Full spaces: 72% Price: Same, at $2.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Commercial Core
Full spaces: 79% Price: Same, at $4.00/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Denny Triangle North
Full spaces: 31% Price: Same, at $2/hr Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 2

Denny Triangle South
Full spaces: 77% Price: Same, at $2.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours
* Parking hours in the Denny Triangle South neighborhood will be extended to 8 pm.

First Hill
Full spaces: 81% Price, Same, at $4.00/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Fremont
Full spaces: 77% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Green Lake
Full spaces: 62% Price: Same, at $1.00/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Pike-Pine
Full spaces: 74% Price: Same, at $2.00/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Pioneer Square Core
Full spaces: 76% Price: Same, at $3.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Pioneer Square Edge
Full spaces: 49% Price: $3/hr, down from $3.50 Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Roosevelt
Full spaces: 48% Price: Same, at $1.00/hr Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 3

South Lake Union
Full two-hour spaces: 52% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr
Full ten-hour spaces: 73% Price: Between $1.00 and $1.50 an hour, depending on location, changed from $1.25 to $1.50 an hour
* SDOT is also increasing the number of ten-hour spaces in South Lake Union.

University District Core
Full spaces: 93% Price: $2.00/hr, up from $1.50 Maximum parking time: 2 hours

University District Edge
Full spaces: 38% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 2 hours

Uptown Core
Full spaces: 53% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 2 hours

Uptown Edge
Full spaces: 41% Price: Same, at $1.50/hr Maximum parking time: 4 hours, up from 2 hours

Uptown Triangle
Full spaces: 31% Price: Same, at $1/hr Maximum parking time: 10 hours, up from a mix of 2-, 3-, and 10-hour spaces


  • Guest

    Communism.

  • FrequentPoster

    What a fucking joke. When you pull up to a meter now, you don’t even know the hours being charged much less the rate. The whole idea behind this is to confuse people so thoroughly that, over time, they’ll just soak the living shit out of everyone. It’s one more reason to get rid of Mike “One Term” McGinn sooner rather than later. We also need to clean house at the city council.

  • Hotmale

    You must be one of those illiterate, mentally retarded Tea Partier guys. If you actually read the post (which I doubt) you’d see that about as many rates are doing down as up, and the time limits are being simplified. 

    The seasonal rates would presumably mean two prices over the course of the year. I realize that numbers are hard for many of you tea-tards, but if this poses you problems, use your redneck palm pilot to write them the fuck down.

  • Anonymous

    I could careless about the rate increases, but the extending time to 8 pisses me off. Now if I get downtown around 4 or 5 for a happy hour I cannot just park and not worry about it. Today I left a place at 6 as my time was expiring instead of staying and having some more drink or food. 

    This more than anything would push me away from the areas where rates and time have changed. 

  • FrequentPoster

    Yeah, right. I disagree with this shit, and I’m either a troll or a wingnut. That’s what the smug jerkoffs who keep getting their asses handed  to them have to tell themselves. The truth is too painful to bear.

  • Jefferson

    We can now call this parking RAPE.  There is no end here now that Mcdouche has tapped this resource.  Let’s further the recession!

  • http://www.twitter.com/joeszi Joe Szilagyi

    “We can now call this parking RAPE.”

    I’m pretty sure having to pay for parking an extra two hours a day isn’t the same as someone forcefully inserting their penis into another person’s vagina or asshole against their will.

    Is it a holocaust every time McGinn discusses adding another road diet, by that scale?

  • Bob Feemster

    I completely agree, extending it to 8 is the most egregious part of this. It also really fucks with the working poor who clean the skyscrapers–they can’t take the bus because they have to drive home to des moines at 4am.

  • Bob Feemster

    People who drive cars must be punished until they are forced to ride a bike instead or else give up and move away. Only then can Seattle become carbon neutral, which is the only sustainable model for maintaining a vibrant urban core.

  • FrequentPoster

    Hey, but don’t you realize that the highest duty of any “progressive” is to fuck with the working poor?

  • Godwin

    The only people that are going to get punished are the yahoos that got McGinn elected and continue to spew his shrill BS. Their punishment will be a descent into political obscurity and irrelevancy.

  • Anonymous

    But But! It’s a MARKET solution! What more could YOU ask for?  You want “Free” as in we subsidize your parking?  Who’s the communist now???

  • Mikos

    This is a lot of things but it’s not a market solution. If yoiu talk to SDOT, people will tell you it’s about engineering parking behavior.  It’s not about markets. 

  • FrequentPoster

    The streets do not belong to Cyclista McSchwinn!

  • Anonymous

    please don’t feed the troll.

  • Scottaspman

    Check your facts…the rate on First Hill DOUBLED from $2 to $4/hour.  And the pay lost are $2.50