Meg Matthews writes:
I live on 36th and Densmore, and in the past few months we’ve noticed that all of the streets around us are jammed with parked cars after about 8:30-9 a.m. Not sure if it’s from all the new construction or what.
I don’t often drive to work, but on the occasion when I do, it’s usually because I need to run back home partway through the day for a vet appointment or something similar. For a few weeks now, I’ve been unable to find a place to park my car anywhere near my house–actually a problem when I’m trying to race in, pack the cat in her carrier, and race out.
The city website says that we need a community or neighborhood group to suggest zoning to the city, so I thought I’d put it out there to your blog in case it’s become problematic for other south-side Wallyhooders as well? Thanks!
For my part, I haven’t seen any uptick in parking congestion, but around where I live (4th and 42nd NE), it’s basically at saturation, so it couldn’t get any more crowded. Best I can tell from the comings and goings I see, it’s commuters who drive in, park for free and then walk to work in the University District (where free parking is hard to come by).
(Photo totally not taken in Wallingford, obvious from the license plates, but hopefully illustrative of the issue, and taken by Woodhouse Moor Online)
I don’t know if could work logistically, but I’d like to see all Seattle streets become RPZ permitted and/or metered. The notion that you can occupy 100+ square feet of public property in perpetuity and for free seems outdated.
I have briefly thought about where we are on Latona near 45th. There are specific standards that have to be met.
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/parkingrpz_howto.htm
I live on 4th & 43rd, and sometimes I cannot find parking when I come home from work. I would love to see zoned parking in our block. I imagine with the saturation we have here, it wouldn’t be hard to meet the revenue standards of the city. I don’t know if we have 10 blocks worth of saturation though.
We lived on 40th near Stone for several years and at some point signed a petition to get a parking zone set up. However, when the city implemented it, I feel like they did it backwards from what we were hoping – it’s restricted to 2 hours during the daytime but unlimited at night. What we were hoping for was something like they have up near 45th where parking is restricted in the evenings. With all the new multi-story residential, we saw serious issues with people parking in front of our house night after night. Our problem was finding a place to park after work, not running home in the middle of the day, so it was a bit different situation. However, I would suggest being specific about the type of request made to the city. A side-note: we very rarely saw enforcement happening which was discouraging when we were paying significant money for a permit each year.
The problem with the Prescott building (40th & Stone) is twofold, they charge their apartment dwellers $100 per month to park IN the building which puts many people parking outside the building and the other is the city will issue RPZ permits to those apartment dwellers in the Prescott building, edging us taxpaying homeowners out of parking in front of our hourses. The problem lays with the city.
As has been gone over here so many times, we live in a city and there’s no fundamental right to parking in front of your home. You bought a house with inadequate parking on your property and that’s that. The parking congestion in Wallingford isn’t new.
Also renters in the apartment building are certainly paying property tax. It’s ridiculous to think that that cost isn’t somehow passed on to the tenants.
“edging us taxpaying homeowners out of parking in front of our hourses”
In what way are the residents of the Prescott not taxpayers? They pay sales tax, MVET, and through their rent they also pay property taxes. The have precisely the same claim to street parking as we do.
I’m at 46th and Bagley and we have zoned parking in the evening on one side of the street. I’m a big fan because there’s always a place to park and always a place for a guest to park (because we have one guest parking pass). During the day, there’s never a place to park because of all the shops and Microsoft employees using the street as a park-and-ride for their shuttle (which picks up around the corner). The only downside is that getting our permits took quite a while. There is enforcement daily, starting between 5 and 20 min after the restrictions take effect.
This was meant to be a reply to DOUG (see below):
If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street
If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat
If you get too cold I’ll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet
Taxman!
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah I’m the taxman
Don’t ask me what I want it for (Aahh Mr. Wilson)
If you don’t want to pay some more (Aahh Mr. Heath)
Cos I’m the taxman, yeah, I’m the taxman
Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends,
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends,
So oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
There’s your typical gimme-gimme-gimme entitlement mentality.
It appears to be a combination of the construction and the offices at 34th and Woodlawn. I’ve heard that there is parking in the building, but they charge employees to park, so they park on the street. Woodlawn between 35th and 36th and the north side of 35th between Woodlawn and Densmore have just been designated RPZ (2 hours between 8:30-4:30). Looks like someone else has posted the link to the RPZ program. You need to get your neighbors to sign a petition to get the zoning. Permit cost per car is $65/2 years. Renews in July 2014, so ask for a pro-rated cost if you do get the zoning.
I live at N 37th and Woodlawn, and my observations over the last several months lead me to believe that the dramatic increase in parked cars in our neighborhood is due to Bastyr students and staff. Another contribution are those folks who are parking near bus stops and commuting. Wouldn’t it be nice if Bastyr created more parking for their people?
The block of Woodlawn by our house is now a restricted parking zone (RPZ-22). It will cost us $65 per vehicle to get permits, which last 2 years. Permits in RPZ-22 are issued in July on even-numbered years. It would cost us a hundred bucks or so to buy temporary permits to get us from now to July 2014, so we’re making due. Another drawback is that each household is only allowed one guest permit. Without the RPZ, however, our neighbors would be squeezed out of parking near their houses.
When I got the notice about $65 and expires in July I wrote back and asked what the pro-rated cost was and they charged me $25 instead.
I called and chatted with somebody from Bastyr today who assured me that the students and staff at Bastyr have also been asking for parking for some time. Also, the 2 hour parking is not addressing the issue entirely because a lot of staff are running out every 2 hours to re-park their cars. Our street has seen a major change since the new 2 hour parking signs went up. There are over a hundred staff at each shift, and three days a week there is a night shift that doesn’t end until 9:30pm! Something has to change. I put together a petition here, which I hope the Wallingford residents and Bastyr staff and student population will sign. Maybe this can help Bastyr allocate funding to build a parking structure or otherwise address the problem. The petition is at http://bit.ly/bastyrparking
I live on 4th near 45th and would love to see zoned parking in our area. Every weekday is a parking nightmare when I get home at 4:30 because of all the commuter parkers.
Yes, at 36th & Densmore, you’d be at the moving front of the parking displaced by the RPZ around Bastyr. The city came out and studied the parking situation several years ago, and approved an RPZ for a fairly broad area, but they allow blocks to join the RPZ one by one. The first one went in around Interlake N right behind Bastyr, and block by block it has been marching east towards the other boundary of the approved area. Our hope is that when Bastyr students are displaced far enough, they’ll find some other solution. If there is no other solution, then they’ll all be parked right around the edges of the RPZ. Which may have been Densmore, don’t remember.
Response to Meg: We are down on Interlake near 36th (a RPZ Zone 22) and I can give you some key contributors to parking scarcity in our shared area. Bastyr, 2 hot new restaurants at 35th and Stone, 2 newish apartment buildings on 36th and 40th/Stone, a new popular cross-fit place on Interlake and 36th (which just lost it’s parking lot this week due to yet another town home construction project! – where are those 20 cars at a time going to park?) and 3 major construction projects in the Brooks building, The Dump, and Stoneway Roofing all in full swing -with another major one at 38th and Stone getting ready to start. Half of Interlake between 36th and 38th is no parking so that they can get dump trucks out during the day. I think we can safely say parking is going to get far worse soon. Buckle down!
Cheers to “The Taxman” lyrics! It sounds like many of you just need to go for a walk, that is what George Harrison would have done. Wallingford has one of the lower car densities in the city. Just be thankful we don’t have the parking problems of Capitol Hill. Park one block down the street and save yourself the rigmarole of getting permits and parking restrictions. One idea I have, and want to pitch to the city, is for residents who don’t use their driveways, to put a paint marker that says “park here”, this would add many parking spaces. This is a more inclusive rather than exclusive approach.
I’ve had this discussion with a friend previously, and he is convinced that at least part of the daytime parking woes in that particular area are connected to Bastyr.
I live far enough away from 45th that we currently don’t have a parking problem (thankfully), but it did get me to wonder….if a street is zoned, do you still need a permit if you park in the driveway (see example – red circled areas)?
Strictly speaking, no one’s supposed to be parking in driveways, even if they are their own. The city is unlikely to enforce this unless someone complains though – http://www.seattlepi.com/local/transportation/article/Getting-There-It-may-be-your-driveway-but-you-1194258.php
I suppose if you have traffic enforcement patrolling through your neighborhood to enforce an RPZ you might be more likely to get ticketed.
The permit is for parking on the street, at the curb, not in driveways. But 57th NE there appears to have an unusually broad space between sidewalk and curb – maybe people can park like that and not impinge on the sidewalk, but most places that isn’t an option. They’ll also ticket you if a wheel is on the planting strip – not because it’s an RPZ, but the RPZ will bring them there.
As a resident at 36th and Woodlawn, I’m in a big squeeze! It’s only going to get worse. I wrote the city in February about EXTENDING Zone 22. They sent someone out within three days, and responded within a week. At the time the inspector came out and took a photo, there were spaces available, (maybe at 7 am???) so the street wasn’t considered eligible.
Here is the city link for an intro:
http://www.seattle.gov/transportation/parking/parkingrpz_howto.htm
More people need to write!!
I noticed the same thing on 34th by that building at the bottom of Wallingford Ave that I think is going to be torn down to build an apartment building. Maybe they run nightshifts in the meantime. Don’t know. It too struck me as odd why the spots are taken up most at night all of a sudden several months ago. About RPZ, I live on an RPZ street which was put in place because of Bastyr Inst. It has helped a little but I still see people getting off work at Bastyr and climbing in their cars and going home so apparently they were able to get permits too. Other than that the RPZ makes sense in my opinion. Friends/family only visit in the evenings and then my street returns to unrestricted parking. One problem is when you have half million dollar townhouses with one-car garages which are usually bought by couples with two cars and so parking becomes harder. Living in the city is a trade off. If you want easy parking you either need to have enough money to buy a property with a big long driveway (rare in Seattle) or move to the eastside, northside, southside, anywhere but in the close in areas.
It would seem these apartment owners assure the city they will provide parking when they apply for building permits and tHen charge extra when the place is built. Is there any remedy for this practice.
I live on Densmore between 37 and 38. How can I help the effort to implement zoned parking? Is there currently an individual or group organizing an effort for Densmore?
After learning that Bastyr has hundreds of staff members, and provides absolutely no parking for them, and has shifts that last as long as 9:30pm in the evening, I decided to put together a petition. Please sign it and send it on to your networks. My hope is that both residents and Bastyr staff will sign this, and help Bastyr commit to providing a parking structure for its sizable medical community. The petition is at http://bit.ly/bastyrparking.