January 28

City adjusts parking rates, Uptown sees decrease

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After announcing that it would be reviewing the Seattle Department of Transportation’s new pay parking rates around town yesterday, the city and SDOT released adjusted rates today that will be rolling out across Seattle over the next two months.

See a larger version of the map here. (.pdf)

The new rates originally announced two weeks ago were set to bring down prices from $2/hour to $1.50/hour in Lower Queen Anne’s Uptown neighborhood, and to $1 to $1.25 in the area known as the “Uptown Triangle”—between Denny Way, Aurora, and Broad Street. (The $1 rate was set for short-term parking between 2 and 4 hours, while the $1.25 rate was for long-term parking up to 10 hours at a time).

The new rates didn’t lower parking citywide however, with many neighborhood retail districts seeing rates increase as high as $4/hour. This, alongside SDOT’s plan to extend pay parking hours from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in a number of the city’s thriving nightlife districts–Uptown, the Commercial Core, Belltown, Pioneer Square, Chinatown/International District, Broadway, Pike-Pine, and the University District–fueled a strong backlash from community groups and neighborhood and city business associations calling for a review of the plan before implementation.

In response the city made modifications to its initial rate change plans. From SDOT:

Based on a thorough review of the City’s rate-setting approach, rates for 2011 will go up in four neighborhoods, down in 11 neighborhoods and will stay the same in seven others as compared to 2010 rates. This will result in 73 percent of paid spaces having either no change or a rate reduction.

The new rates in Uptown will stay at the initial decreased price of $1.50/hour, however in the Uptown Triangle area SDOT opted to further drop rates to $1/hour for both short-term and long-term parking stays.

The city says the new changes should allow it to achieve its goal of having one to two open parking spaces per block on average.

“We’ve taken a critical second look at our data and methodology for setting parking rates,” SDOT’s director of Traffic Management Charles Bookman said in a press release. “These modifications are a reflection of the mayor’s and City Council’s commitment to data-driven policies to make it more likely for motorists to find an open spot on the street.”

From SDOT:

In adopting the 2011 budget, the Seattle City Council directed SDOT to set rates to achieve an average of one or two available spaces per block in each neighborhood. During its review process, the department revised its methodology for achieving such on-street availability to more closely align with this policy direction. Most significantly, SDOT adjusted its target occupancy range to 71 percent to 86 percent, instead of the previously used 58 percent to 78 percent, which better corresponds to the seven parking spaces per block found on average in paid parking neighborhoods. The plan to extend paid parking hours for the nine neighborhoods with active nightlife and high evening parking demand, announced on January 14, remains unchanged.

Once the new rates have been in place for awhile, SDOT will collect data to determine if the new rates were successful in achieving SDOT’s goals. View the adjusted parking rate changes citywide by neighborhood here (.pdf).


Tags

on-street parking, parking rates, pay parking times, SDOT, Uptown, Uptown Triangle


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