seattle.gov
[UPDATE: PubliCola has a summary of the meeting. Here's a link to the report and a link to the archived press conference. From the Executive Summary:
Policy Objective: To set rates to achieve approximately one or two open spaces per block on average in a neighborhood business district
2010 citywide paid parking study results:
• Out of the approximately 13,500 paid parking spaces in the city, almost 60%, or 7,800 spaces, were included in the study. All neighborhoods with paid parking were studied, although some were sampled.
• Several neighborhoods, such as First Hill and Commercial Core, were quite full; several had low peak parking occupancyNew 2011 neighborhood paid parking rates
• A target occupancy range was projected so that a neighborhood’s parking rate could be increased, stay the same, or decreased to achieve the policy objective of one or two open spaces. This range works out to be 58% to 78%.
• Generally, if an area’s parking occupancy was higher than the target occupancy, than the rate needed to increase; if an area’s parking occupancy was below the range, than the rate needed to drop.
• With the new data‐driven approach, nine areas will see increased parking rates, nine areas will have the same rate as 2010, and four areas will have decreased rates by $0.50 per hour. Compared to current rates, 62% of paid spaces will see the same rate or a decrease in 2011.Next Steps
• Rate installation rolls out beginning February 1 and concludes by March 30. Rates are set to change only once in 2011.
• Evening paid parking is expected to roll out starting in April 2011 and continue through September 2011.
• SDOT’s work on the variable pricing feasibility analysis is underway to potentially establish 2012 rates for different parts of day, for rates that change as frequently as on a quarterly basis, and for rates on a finer grain within a neighborhood.
• Another citywide paid parking study will occur this summer to monitor the affects of the rate changes.
Hooray for market pricing!
Original post after the jump.]
The live stream begins at 11am.
I had absolutely no idea about this “liquor sticker” concept. This is fantastic news! Though certainly not as fantastic as transit operating through the night…
this is an excellent idea.
So, if the parking occupancy rate is 60%, the rate should increase? lol
In other words, they prefer to have more than 40% of all parking spaces vacant throughout the day.
Why? What is the value of empty parking spots to the city, or the public?
If 6 out of ten parking spots on a block were taken, would you feel that it was difficult to find a place to park? lol
You’re not reading, Norman.
60% of the spaces were surveyed. Not a 60% occupancy target. Don’t know where you pulled that from.
Goal is “one or two” open spaces per block, not a % target. On some blocks that means 50% full, on others 95% full.
Actually I was using the Publicola report which said that Pioneer Square was one of the neighborhoods where parking rates are being raised, from $2.50 to $4.00 per hour.
According to the study, Pioneer Square has a peak parking occupancy rate of 66% between 10am and 4pm, and 62% between 4 and 6pm.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/docs/Parking_Data_Results_fin.pdf page 3
Again on page 33 “Pioneer Square Peak Parking Summary” it gives the percent occupied parking average as 59%.
That falls comfortably within the target range. So, why is the city increasing the parking rate in Pioneer Square?
According to the study, there are four other neighborhoods where parking occupancy is within the target range, but the city is increasing parking rates in those neighborhoods, also: Cherry Hill (78%, 53%); Pike-Pine (67%, 72%); International (73%, 62%); Fremont (73%, 73%).
Am I looking at the wrong table? Or is the city raising parking rates even where there are already over 20% vacant parking spots even in the peak parking hours?
Or, maybe Erica just got her information wrong, as she often does.
Well, knowing downtown/pioneer square parking, 60% might actually BE 1 or 2 open spaces. As I recall from my pizza delivery days, on any given downtown block, you’ve usually got a Passenger-load zone (3-min white space), a commercial/truck zone (15-min yellow space, extra long), and maybe a bus stop or some sort of specialty zone (taxi/police/charter bus). In the older parts of town, that clamps it down to sometimes only a couple general purpose parking spaces per block. This is why it was so important for us delivery people to get commercial plates!
Anyway, in a lot of these older areas, 66% occupancy might mean only 1 open space.
Or we might not have all the information.
[Ot]
[Ot]
[ot]
How about peak and off-peak rates? And maybe some senior discounts too, and, and, a park free area in front of city hall for official business, plus some rules for parking after 7pm.
I’m really getting into this complexity thing. I like it a lot.
Can I get a discount if I store my old clothes washer on the street too?
I mean it’s also a heavy machine that takes up space…
Yes, but only for 72 hours in the same spot. Then you have to nudge it down the sidewalk, except for notes D, F, K, and L which apply only during non ‘slippery sidewalk’ event days.
I don’t see what is so complicated about it. Supply and demand makes a lot more sense to me than some artificial price control.
It’s not and I think market pricing is a good thing.
It was a tongue and cheek snipe about our transit fares in the region. I’ll keep at it until you can ride a train or a bus from A-B for the same fare. Who cares how many wheels it has and what there made out of?
Do you also think direct flights should be the same price as those that require layovers? Both go from A to B.
Well, that’s a good question, given the airline is selling passage from A to B. If a direct flight is available, that’s the one I’m taking, otherwise I’ll do a connecting flight, or layover somewhere
From the airlines point of view, it cost less to put me on a direct flight, and from my view it cost me more in time to do layovers. The result is the same. One body from A to B. Same price.
Let’s take transit, trains or bus or monorail or whatever. Same logic.
If the transit agency can deliver me to B, at less cost on a direct vehicle then great, otherwise I have to transfer and take a layover somewhere. No difference.
All this has nothing to do with Seattle parking, but it’s always an interesting discussion – till it gets bleeped as [Ot].
Except that most of the time direct flights aren’t cheaper, but instead usually a hundred or so bucks more. We try to fly direct as much as possible but the large difference in cost usually means we have at least one layover. Which makes sense as premium service SHOULD carry a premium price.
What cost more?
Fly a direct path from A to B, with one climb out and landing, or two flights, off the direct path, with twice the fuel and labor to climb, descend, and have one extra ground handling.
The direct cost less.
If you can convince the passengers it’s a premium service, and get away with charging more, then go for it. But here, the only market clearing pricing is based on what the market will bear, not the cost of doing business.
Now, hub and spoke, and all the economies associated with that are a different matter. Obviously you can’t have direct flights going everywhere, running half empty planes.
Again, transit is no different.
Now, if you can implement zonal fares like London has had since the 70s…
Let us rise up and join the Shoupistas!!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=70015940360
Looking at the various maps, it looks like a lot of areas that currently have the heaviest usage (indicated by red and lavendar on the maps) happen to be quite close to restaurants and theaters (at least in my neck of the woods). And, the heaviest use times are between 6pm and 8pm, which is currently free-to-park. If paid-parking will be required for 6pm to 8pm, won’t that put a lot of downtown restaurants, movie theaters, and general events – like the First Thursday gallery walk – at a notable competetive disadvantage? Or will there be enough transit support and local foot traffic to make up the difference?
We used to go to Belltown for dinner, but it has become impossible to find a parking spot, so we have stopped going to those restaurants. If paid parking went until at least 8pm, we might actually be able to find a spot, and we’d reconsider returning to those restaurants.
I think Belltown should have paid parking until 10pm Thurs – Sat.
I don’t know if this is still happening to the same degree but one challenge in Belltown had been that the restaurants offering valet service were using on street parking – thereby sucking up a lot of it and taking advantage of the fact that it was free after 6pm.
I think keeping those spots moving from 6-8 sounds like a great idea and should increase the supply of on street parking in the neighborhood (even more so than the rate increase IMO).
Some people in the past have said that increased parking rates will push people to shop and dine on the eastside, but with 520 tolls coming in Spring, it might be a zero sum scenario.
Several years ago up in Vancouver, a trolley bus driver on the Route 4 apologized to me because at 10 pm, headways went from 4 to 8 minutes. Off-peak, we get half hour off-peak headways on many city routes.
Item: every public event Downtown, large numbers of families from Auburn and Kent drive to Tukwila International and board LINK. Many of these people would have voted against LINK a few years ago, as having no use for them. Overhearing conversations, you hear two things: 1. Parking Downtown is beyond family budget. 2. LINK is great while city driving sucks.
If you don’t like park-and-rides on principal, Auburn is probably twenty minutes from Tukwila by express bus, if we had one 7 days a week. ORCA is long overdue for the regional day passes and family fares other systems have had for decades. A fast bus-and-train ride at age 3 starts a lifetime of pro-transit voting fifteen years later. Campaign tactic: flood Surrey Downs with family passes good on both the 550 and LINK.
If this discussion were being conducted in the context of clearing lanes for transit- driving the old Route 7 on Broadway, or the 44 through Wallingford, I hated street parking at all on arterials with wire overhead- I’d be all for it. But present thrust seems to be, as usual with ideological “free-market” rhetoric, making it easier to bring your SUV into town if you can afford it. Sorry, Paul Weyrich, wherever you are: transit is a liberal thing, which means ordinary people get a break.
Mark Dublin
When I used to drive the 7 down Rainier it peeved me to no end that cars parked made the lanes really narrow. Going fast with a truck next to you kept the hair on my neck standing up.
So I did a little informal survey one week. About 1/3 of the cars never moved, day or night (doing a vacation relief that week).
About 1/3 came in the morning and left at night. The other 1/3 were in and out of businesses. Very rough survey.
I could find small, off-street ‘pocket parking lots’ within a block for nearly all the cars, if the junkers didn’t count.
So who should get the pavement? Faster, safer lanes for moving vehicles and transit (BRT?), or junkers and daily commuters mostly.
Mike, thanks for the memories of the 7. My worst parking recollections are Broadway and Wallingford, but I know there’s been a lot of development through Columbia City these last fifteen years.
Interesting personal observation from Norway, Sweden, and Finland: streetcars seem to suffer less from conflict with cars entering or leaving street parking spaces than trolleybuses do here.
In Oslo and Helsinki, rolling stock is about the same caliber as the South Lake Union Streetcar. But in Stockholm, the Flexity Swifts seem to be the same size as LINK’s equipment. Even so, the “Tverbanna” line from Sickla Udde to Alvik runs some very narrow streets, in busy neighborhoods alongside a lot of parked cars.
In all these systems, train drivers seem able to calibrate their speed so the motorists are out of their way by the time the train rolls by. Partly superb training and familiarity on both sides. Partly, I think, the legal and customary understanding that since trains can’t “go around”, they shouldn’t have to.
Mark Dublin
I wish there were no on-street parking allowed on arterials. Why do businesses want those spots so badly? The people in those cars parked right in front of the restaurant/store may not even be going to your business, but a place around the corner. Plus, those cars are going to be parked there for a period of time in which no one else can park there. And, when they try to leave–and another car tries to park there–they will be blocking traffic for everyone. Getting rid of that parking will allow traffic to flow more freely for everyone. Now, if people insist that they need to park, than have some sort of parking lot available in the more dense areas(there’s always a place to park in downtown/Belltown with the parking garages and parking lots!)
With some of Seattle’s streets so narrow, I am astounded that there are parked cars on parts of route #16! A northbound bus has to wait until the southbound bus has cleared the street before it can proceed!
So, there are good arguments for on-street parking on arterials for handicapped access (where it can’t be accomodated on the cross-streets near the corner) — this is for people who simply cannot walk or roll long distances. Similarly, drop-off/pick-up spots and delivery spots for heavy items make perfect sense.
It doesn’t seem necessary or appropriate, most of the time, to have *general-purpose* parking on downtown arterials, rather than special-purpose parking. The average person in a car can afford to drive a couple of blocks away at the very least, and parking garages generally pop up if there’s a lot of demand.
[...] equivalent amount of money with these spaces by leasing them to Zipcar. As it stands right now the city wants to increase rates to $3 per hour on Broadway. The city could net the same amount of money as they would net from 15 hours of parking usage per [...]