The City is collecting feedback on a proposal to add additional Restricted Parking Zones (RPZ’s), or areas that would require a special zone sticker to park at certain times of the day.
From the SDOT website RPZ page:
SDOT recently completed a parking study of residential streets in Wallingford to determine the occupancy in the area as well as the percent of non-resident parking throughout the day and evening. The study area includes the existing Zone 5 and parts of existing Zone 22, as well as many currently unrestricted blocks. SDOT studied the area holistically and presented results to the Wallingford Community Council on September 6. […]
For an area to qualify for a new RPZ, there must be at least 20 contiguous blockfaces that are 75% or more full of parked vehicles with at least 35% of those vehicles belonging to non-residents. Our Wallingford parking study found that weekdays during daytime hours were when the most blocks met the occupancy criteria.
That’s no surprise to me. Every morning, I see commuters from up north arrive, park their cars close to the Wallingford / U District border, and then walk in (rather than pay for parking closer to the UW). I usually have to drive a couple blocks away from my house to find a parking spot after 8 or 9 am. Evening time is no problem.
More information on the study and its finding on SDOT’s page, as well as a link to a survey, which closes November 30th.
(Thanks Alex Okubo for the tip!)
This is excellent news. The only improvements I can think of would be money coming back to Wallingford for neighborhood improvements (parks, walking/biking/transit, etc.), and making *all* street parking paid.
Great idea– hope some one who makes decisions hears you.
This is pretty good news. We have a lot of people park on our street and then catch the bus to go downtown or walk to the University District for work/school. I would support 2 hour limits during weekdays 8am to 5pm.
One reason my husband takes public transport downtown is because there is no place to park downtown for free. Imagine how many more people would drive to work downtown if there was free street-parking. That is exactly what is happening in Wallingford.
Free street parking means that many people who work at the Tableau buildings at Densmore and Woodlawn have an incentive to drive. Their commutes are shorter if they drive. I’ve been told new hires are at Tableau are shown a color coded map of which streets are not RPZed. So again, it’s encouraging driving.
I had a newborn before our street got RPZed and I was walking several blocks lugging a car seat and baby. When I went to get groceries, I would double park in the middle of street. Bring the bags to my doorstep then drive with my baby to park somewhere else.
The shame of it is, my street has plenty of parking. But this was not just a few cars coming. This was a bumper to bumper parking lot. I even witnessed a hit-and-run of a parked car.
Less free parking tends to be a good thing. RPZ permits are only available to residents, right? I see this as a problem. For example, it’s a better use of public resources when more crub-side parking is utilized during more hours of the day, and everyone pays for shared parking. If residents get a discount, great. But everyone should be paying something.
If you read my post, you can see I talk about how free parking encourages driving rather than using public transportation. The more people who use public transportation the less detrimental effects to the environment. Some people think that’s a good thing.
There simply are times when one does not want to use public transportation!!
This is a step in the right direction, but it is a missed opportunity to use this public space in much more people friendly ways.
My street is full 8am-6pm, then there are only a few cars. The city should convert about half the on-street spaces to RPZ and reclaim the other half. A great use of the reclaimed space would to widen the planting strips, adding more trees. Switching which side the wide planting was on at the mid-block creates a chicane. This would dramatically slow down cars vehicles which leave the nearby arterial and continue too fast for a residential street. If this was done in a planned way across the neighborhood all the cut-thru traffic in the residential blocks could be reduced or at least slowed while still allowing access for delivery trucks and emergency vehicles. We would also have a prettier and healthier neighborhood.
Existing residents should be granted permits because it’s fair to let people use the spaces whey have always used. It would also be fair to grant permits to some permanents to local, small businesses who have historically used some of the spaces nearby. However, residential permanents shouldn’t be considered an entitlement. We need to end the idea that people own public parking spaces. The number of permits should be capped. People who move into the neighborhood should be go into a wait list to get the next available permit. Owners and renters, homeowners and apartment dwellers should all be join the list in the same order. When someone moves out their permits should return to the public pool, not to the person who rents or purchases the property.
Speed bumps or even those little concrete “turtles” would be a lot cheaper, just as effective, and wouldn’t remove scare parking.
When the street becomes RPZ then parking will not be scare.
Slowing traffic is only one benefit of reclaiming pavement.
An RPZ could make a modest difference in parking availability, but it doesn’t fully address the scarcity of the resource.
Parking is not scarce in Wallingford. It is poorly managed. Look at the maps [1]. In most of the areas studied there is always parking within a block. There are some blocks where RPZ will ensure the viable spaces go to residents. As for others who need to park, there is are multiple parking lots along 45th which are almost empty all the time. If parking was scarce people would be charging and paying for these paces.
Parking is not a resource. Public space is a resource. Parking is a use of this space and in most cases a poor use of the space.
[1] http://www.seattle.gov/Documents/Departments/SDOT/ParkingProgram/rpz/WallingfordResults_WCCpptx.pdf
There is often no tparking w/in on eblock of some places.
In a Minneapolis neighborhood, there are stop signs at every other block in both directions. They are staggered, so there are no 4-way stops. Does that make sense? Everyone drives slower.
In
Seattle nobody obeys stop signs on residential streets.
Sorry, wrong topic…
Don’t worry. That’s not something posters on this blog worry about.
Most houses here do not come with driveways and garages. Some are owned. Many are homes to several tenants. Can we accomodate these neighbors in this proposal?
Where will the $$ come from to enforce these parkiing restrictions? Who will be available to enforce them? I read on Wallyhood about delays in police responses to urgent problems in our neighborhood.. ..
Definitely a work in progress needing helpful input from neighbors to arrive at meaningful solutions. .
Parking enforcement is those little 3-wheelers, not patrol cars. They’ll come around – and they’ll ding you for whatever infractions they can, like expired tags etc. I don’t recall ever seeing them ticket for not having an RPZ sticker, I suppose they do that too.
absolutely used to do that.
The entire city should be RPZ permitted.
City hall DEMS are out of hand with regulation. Next thing you know i’ll need a license to drive to the qfc.
Unrelated to anything, and not problem solving
One thing that worked well when we created the Zone 22 RPZ at Lincoln was to only implement the RPZ on the west side of the street. This helped to “diffuse” the impact rather than simply blocking the impact and pushing it completely outward to adjacent neighbors. Yes, there are fewer spaces in the RPZ, but it seems to have worked well for us, even with the middle school, a high school, and a popular park competing. We used to have the same issue of having to park four blocks away upon return if we left after 8am for errands. Hard on seniors and young families with infants.
Places like NYC and Tokyo have neighborhood parking structures and/or parking in the basements of commercial buildings with parking for lease. It would probably be helpful to have a place to “mothball” that car that is only used intermittently. Tokyo often had a neighborhood “elevator” facility where apartment dwellers could stash their car.
For those who want to charge for all parking spaces, you might have a different perspective if you were poor, or living in your car, or handicapped or elderly.
Birdy, first off, people living in vehicles are immune from any laws governing parking. Second, you raise an interesting point – the same people saying all parking should be charged are some of the same people saying people of all incomes should live in all neighborhoods. It seems that one sure way to keep that from happening (or limiting it) is to price them out with parking fees.
I am somebody like that, because I think what we need is an environment where people don’t need cars. We can have an environment where the poor, the handicapped and the elderly don’t need cars, and nobody live in cars. Car is not a necessity in most countries around the world. Sure shouldn’t be needed in cities unless poorly planned.
Hypothetically the daytime parking crunch that the RPZ would address is (1) residents who need to park on the street during business hours, or (2) people who are visiting the neighborhood for <2 hours (aka all the people visiting American Mary up the street).
Re (1) I fully understand that some residents need to drive during the day (e.g., you are disabled, have small kids, are toting home dog chow, or are going somewhere with sucky transit access), but given that (A) we have amazing transit accessibility to many (but not all places), (B) driving is generally more expensive, and (C) driving is not super awesome for the environment….I would be curious what unnecessary car travel by residents is happening and how one could incentivize people to not take their car out in the first place (thereby eliminating the re-parking issue).
Re (2) While I want to support our neighborhood commercial district, I am more concerned about freeing up more capacity for the short-turnover trips of people zooming into the neighborhood from I-5 and zooming back out again (often after partaking in some neighborhood products) thereby creating less-safe neighborhood conditions (I've noticed anecdotally that they seem to drive faster, more carelessly, and block driveways when there are available spaces 30 feet away) and more traffic (2 trip/day much less traffic than 20).
I would be very curious to see the results of the study at finer-grain detail. The 75% occupancy is fairly low. I just went out and counted parking spaces on my block, and at 25% availability, there would be 2-3 spaces on either side of the block…so 4-6 spaces total…which is more than enough. And if I were willing and able to walk a block away, that would increase to X4 (for my block…I realize that they aren't all this way). Its hard to see how 20sh spaces on a block are not sufficient. Many of the blocks studied may have much higher occupancy rates, but I didn't see the data to tell me about it (is it somewhere else?).
Another question: to address those who are "hide and riding" to catch transit downtown; are other park and rides full or not have sufficient transit service serving them?
I know I am guilty of driving too much in our neighborhood and can self-identify the following reasons:
(1) it is very easy to park
(2) I can't get on transit during peak hours; its too crowded and I have to wait for several buses
(3) when i travel with my kid, I don't trust non-professional lyft drivers, don't want to carry around a car-seat with me to go shopping.
(4) Since I used ZipCar so infrequently after having a kid, I let my membership lapse.
(5) I am terrified of walking across I-5 during peak hours or in the dark…especially with my kid (although I will occasionally do it after adding dozens of red, blinky LEDS to the stroller and our jackets).
I realize that people (like those with kids and no driveway) are still being greatly inconvenienced, so a few solutions I'd offer that are more systems-thinking rather than band-aids that aren't fixing root causes:
– address regional park-and-ride needs so that people don't need to park-and-ride here (is there a study on this? would be interesting to read. my brief search couldn't find anything recent).
– parking benefit districts, which allow a community to erect paid parking by choice in exchange for using part of the revenue for something that benefits the local area.
– regional tolling that effectively dramatically reduced driving, increased funding for transit reliability and capacity, and thereby brought fewer vehicles into our neighborhood / incentivized those in our neighborhood (who could) to leave their car at home.
– reducing parking at neighborhood entry points and converting many spots to have extreme traffic calming that makes sure the traffic that is flowing into our neighborhoods is traveling a safe speed…while also adding pervious surfaces (reduces runoff), and visibility of pedestrians.
– I'd also suggest a few streets that have high traffic and only one lane of travel be converted to one-way and closing the SB on-ramp at 45th during the afternoon to all non-HOV vehicles so that the traffic queue lines up along the freeway rather than clogging up transit along Latona and 45th as it currently does.
I think one big thing that an RPZ addresses is that it cuts down on the number of SOVs that are filling up the parking during the day. Free all-day parking greatly incentivizes them to drive alone to work everyday.
It only lessens SOV vehicle-trips iff the total of SOV all-day-parkers > SOV vehicles that leave our neighborhood during the day (that need the RPZ to be able to park) + SOV vehicles that increase use of all the available parking for short duration trips
There is nothing like having available (and free) parking all the time to induce more people to drive along to our neighborhood, and an RPZ virtually guarantees that for any trip < 2 hours. It also makes it easy for all of us to leave the neighborhood and arrive back to have essentially reserved parking waiting… This is anecdotal, but I know when I lived in a neighborhood with tight parking and didn't have a driveway to ditch my car in, I walked, biked, and rode transit a bunch more.
I don’t see any issue with 2 hour limit parking for visitors or those running a quick errand. No need to ride the bus for an hour to pick something up from a store, or if you have to transport larger items that would be hard to get on the bus. My issue is with those who are solo driving in from outside of the neighborhood to their jobs and getting all-day, free, unlimited parking.
I also don’t see any issue with those who live in our neighborhood parking on the street near their own homes. They may have to make car trips throughout the day for doctor appointments, groceries, pick up kids, or what-have-you.
It’s sure worthwhile to look for ways to support alternatives to cars. But parking doesn’t create cars or make them get out on the road. The reason we’re looking at parking as a way to solve this problem is not because it will work, but because it makes costs developers, UW, etc. real money to support the parking demand they create.
Of course high parking price get cars out of the road. The main reason many people don’t drive to downtown for work is due to the high parking price. My company got location in both Wallingford and downtown, and I got a coworker from Issaquah that’s willing to spend half an hour more one way to come into the Wallingford office instead of the downtown one due to high parking cost. If parking isn’t free at the Wallingford office, he’d do park and ride to downtown instead.
Parking demand are definitely suppressed by higher price. The reason people would park in Wallingford to work in UW or downtown is because the parking price is too low in Wallingford.
I agree with you!
What a terrible thing to do to long time residents of Wallingford. To make us pay to park in front of our homes is outrageous! Who authorized the Wallingford Council to ask for a study on residential parking? Regardless of the many who think this is a great idea, it will come back to haunt you. Maybe you have deep pockets but the rest of us don’t. And don’t kid yourselves, no monies will go into the neighborhood coffers from this phenomenal disaster!! The city will find a way to keep all monies.
I am pretty sure the study was not requested by Wallingford Community Council, it would have to have been requested by some residents of those particular areas.
I’m in RPZ 22. I personally am not so sure it’s such a great deal, with the fee, parking enforcement patrolling your neighborhood looking for petty offenses to ticket, and all you get is a daytime-only limit of non-resident parking to 2 hours. But the neighbors insist it’s much better now.
Yes Donn, the WCC did request the study.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/WallingfordRPZ
Read the whole article.
I fail to see whom this benefits. The city wastes resources in patrolling and issuing parking tickets, the RPZ fees are paid from the pockets of residents, the paperwork costs to identify residents must be astronomical. This is just another intrusion into our lives. Shades of 1984, Big Brother is watching you!!!
OK, got me there, but as you say (“the many who think this is a great idea”), the motivation comes from the people in this area who are living in a UW park and ride lot. If it solves that problem, and doesn’t just push it to a nearby area, maybe it’s worth it, but it it’s up to you. Or it should be – I can’t say for sure. If this “survey” is all there is, and there’s no checking to see whether respondents live in the affected areas, then it’s kind of a mockery, but that seems to be the way they do things lately.
On costs, specifically – according to what I’m reading from the UW, they’ll pay for the first permit, per household, and half of the second. Because part of the zone will (we might expect) be in the UW “primary impact zone”, which extends into Wallingford. (To Latona NE, south of NE 45th.) That’s something to watch, as their Campus Master Plan hasn’t been approved yet and I don’t know for sure I’m looking at the current policy.
Patty, I don’t know what part of Wallingford you live in, but before you decide to be dead set against any more RPZ’s, I urge you to consider the other side of the coin: If your block isn’t included in an RPZ zone, it’s just a matter of time until you won’t be able to park in front of your house anyway.
Why? Because much of Wallingford has been designated an Urban Village. And years ago, the city decided to allow any new development in UV’s, even if it’s an apartment with 60 units, to be built without being required to provide ANY on-site parking. For example, the Bill the Butcher site by the post office is slated to be a 40 unit building with ZERO parking. Many developers will happily forgo the expense of providing on-site parking.
What’s that got to do with you and RPZ’s, you ask? Because developers will treat their new renters’ parking needs as an externality to be born by neighbors nearby, while they pocket the difference. Furthermore, when the HALA upzones pass and they start slapping up aPodments with no on-site parking everywhere, most of the residents in these new buildings will still choose to own cars. And guess where they’re going to park them. On my street, and yours.
No one’s saying RPZ’s are a perfect solution. But if we can establish some and hopefully keep arterials with big new buildings from being included in the RPZ zone and prevent those residents from being able to park their cars all over the hood, then hopefully you can still continue to park on your block. It’s a longshot, but new RPZ zones are probably the only chance you have for that. And I’d say the annual fee is a small price to pay for that.
Perhaps you are right hayduke! I guess we’ll have to wait to see. Thanks for your input!!
No, he’s wrong, but he has enough disclaimers in there that we might as well let it go. In our dreams, we would like to see RPZ permits be limited to 4 per lot, or some other policy to deal with residential contention. But then in our dreams, we wouldn’t have that problem in the first place.
In my dreams we wouldn’t spend so much money and space on cars which sit idle most of the time and then destroy the environment when they are used. It’s going to take a while to get to a better solution so for now we need smarter ways to manage parking.
Donn, as I’ve said before, I agree with you that RPZ permits should be limited to a certain number per lot (I’d argue 3, not 4). It’s certainly not a perfect system. But the current program is the only one we have, and I’m trying to address the problem in the realm of the possible, rather and the realm of Dreamworld.
Disability permits make a big difference, right? You have one, and use it for street parking. I have one, and I I don’t use the street, I use my garage. I never park on the street.
You are not charged for parking, i.e. how much you use parking spaces. You pay $65 per year for a permit each vehicle you own. Then you can park them as much as you want. The cost is $10 for low income households. You can also pay $30 per year for a permit which is not registered to your car. Residents often lease these to commuters in more popular zones, e.g. Capital Hill.
We should move away from thinking that people have a right to park cars in front of their houses. That is public land, not the homeowners. Parking is one use of the land, but we should consider others.
$65 is a charge for parking your car regardless of how one looks at it, the permit fee is $65 and that’s a charge. Yes, on street parking is for public use and on street parking is a consideration for home buyers in a given area. Homeowners are required to maintain the planting strip and sidewalks in front of their homes regardless of who parks there and litters them up. No, homeowners should have the right to park in front of their homes. So let’s just agree to disagree!!
I went to park in a spot I have parke din often only to find one of those horrible red lines covering about 20 feet off stone Way N.. tha tis another way to restrict parking– bug fat red lines and stiff no parking fines.