How Far for Parking? Swedish Employees Test the Limits

Remember last year when we talked about neighborhood efforts to expand the residential parking zones around the Swedish Cherry Hill (nee Providence) campus. Since then, some neighbors have been hard at work to add their blocks to the zone and prevent Swedish employees from taking up all of their on-street parking. 

Any residents within the zone, or "RPZ", get a special parking sticker for their cars, giving them permission to park on the street during normal work hours. People parked there without a sticker will be ticketed by the city's parking enforcement officers.

It's easy to see the effect the expanded zone has had on daytime parking. Here's a photo of Columbia St. between 20th & 19th, showing only a single vehicle parked on the street. This block was added to the RPZ earlier this year:

Go just one block east, further away from the hospital and outside of the RPZ, and it's a very different story, with cars lining both sides of the street:

These spaces are 1/3 of a mile from the nearest entrance to the hospital, and neighbors here tell me that they're working on adding their block to the zone too.

Want to get your block added? The requirements are that you be connected to an existing block in a zone, i.e., you can't be a no-parking island unto yourself. See the city's map here to see how close you are to the zone. You must also get the signatures of at least 60% of the residents on both sides of your block. Once you've done all that, follow the instructions here to complete the process: http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/parkingrpz_how