Community Post

Neighborhood parking getting tougher?

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The Seattle Times P-I has a story today about a city proposal to restrict the number of residential parking permits people can have in certain neighborhoods. According to the article, households in some of the densest areas – like the heart of Capitol Hill – would be restricted to only one permit. In other aeas, like Wallingford,
a household would be allowed two permits. The article continues:

But for other residents, the proposed restrictions could remove fleets of cars on streets, and parking could get a little better, said city parking planner Mary Catherine Snyder. The permits, which exempt vehicles from time limits in residential parking zones, are intended to give residents a better chance of finding all-day spaces in their own neighborhoods.

I notice the CD isn’t among the neighborhoods mentioned (is this due to density requirements?) although there is a “Zone 14 near Garfield High School” that is slated for four permits per household.

If you’re a car owner like me, you’ve probably noticed that it’s getting increasingly tougher to find all-day parking outside your house or even on your block, due to the recent influx of townhouse and multi-family housing.

What do you think? Are parking spaces becoming scarcer in the CD? If so, what, if anything, should be done about it.

Here’s the story:

City proposes limits on residential parking permits

0 thoughts on “Neighborhood parking getting tougher?”

  1. The city makes a big deal out of it, but it doesn’t seem like they actually enforce zoned parking, so I’m not sure how much it matters. I left my car sitting with no tag in a zoned spot for a week without moving and wasn’t ticketed. And today was the first time I’d ever seen a parking enforcement person checking the cars parked in the zoned area by cafe flora. (zone 24? I forget.) Overall, I find it somewhat strange that they seem to be letting builders include fewer parking spots while at the same time making it harder to park on the street. Strange.

  2. Zone 2 near Providence Hospital, — scheduled to get two permits per household, and the eastern part of Zone 7 near Seattle University, — scheduled to get one permit per household are also in the CD.

    Much of the street parking in these areas is taken by commuters to the two institutions. As part of the Major Institution Master Plan which allows the development of colleges and hospitals in residential neighborhoods the City has rules requiring institutions to seriously limit the number of people who commute in a Single Occupancy Vehicle (SOV). The City does not enforce those rules. Although Seattle U. seems to have complied, in the case of the Providence campus Swedish/Sabey has never complied with the rule requiring fewer than 50% to arrive some way other than in an SOV. This is true even though most Swedish employees get free or highly subsidized transit passes. Not sure about the employees of tenants of Sabey.

    The City has in place one half of a strategy to limit traffic: The instituion is required to charge enough for on-site parking to take away the incentive of free or relatively cheap parking. But, there’s free parking on the streets. The City should work with the institutions to implement strategies that actually get commuters out of the SOV. Maybe some of the $$$ that the institutions spend on building parking garages could be spent on supporting new transit routes. (Metro has a program to provide transit service in partnership with private business.) Microsoft provides very popular buses for its employees from several parts of Seattle.

  3. It was actually in the Seattle P-I. The Times didn’t have it.
    http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/transportation/373179_park01.h

  6. If you want more details on SDOT’s process and proposed changes to the RPZ policy and the opportunity to comment via an on-line questionnaire see:

    http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/rpz_policy_rev

  8. On our street there are a few residents that have 5+ vehicles on the street. Most of these rarely move and then only wear off the tire chalk from the parking cops. I think it is ok to park on the street where you live but the public street is not the place to store your collection. Here on Union street there is an informal Park-n-Ride as commuters drive here to park free and ride the bus downtown. Permits would help both of these situations.
    When I lived in Providence Rhode Island for a while they have a law of no street parking overnight. You had to call the police if you had visitors that needed to park on the street. It was amazing to see the streets completely empty of cars at night. It did mean that every driveway and alot of yards had cars parked in them. That was probably too extreme of a solution but it did make sure all of the cars were actively being used.

  11. The text of the link is truncated (for display only), but the actual link works when you click on it

  13. Look at 25th Ave between Pike and Union. In the past 3 years or so they have torn down 4 single family houses where 19, YES 19, townhomes now stand. Those townhomes have horrible driveways into tiny garages that most people don’t even use. The parking in this area has gotten very congested.

  14. Due to the popularity of Crush, and perhaps the Bottleneck, I am rarely able to park on my block after a certain hour. Since I live at the top of the hill, that means I often have to carry all my groceries or whatever a block or more uphill. I would say the parking around my area sucks.

  15. It certainly is up in Canada. In Toronto, you can’t park anywhere for more than 3 hours without getting a permit, and what was once a formality – Toronto parking permits – is indeed getting increasingly tedious to obtain. I’ve been dealing with this matter more personally, I would encourage anyone whom it may concern to cast an eye or two on this before attempting to park in Toronto. Drop me a line, if you want.

    Yours truly,
    Julie

  16. You are so right, I see lots of cars parked on 25th where it used to be sparse, and spillover onto Pike st. If we’re going to have density in our neighborhood I just wish it would be better planned, and I might add it’s laughable when they send out letters soliciting community comments on buildings that are already framed. What are they going to do, tear them down if somebody has a legitimate objection? And some fool has taken to blaring their radio at 7am on Sundays…aren’t Sunday mornings supposed to be quiet? I’m quite sure I would like most of my new neighbors if I got to know them, but it’s just so hard to get used to their windows and balconies looming over my backyard. And, of course, the parking.