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Wednesday, April 8, 2009

City Free Parking for Light Rail Neighbors, For Now

Posted by Erica C. Barnett on Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:32 PM

The city has decided to give free parking permits to residents and employees around light-rail stations in Southeast Seattle, to prevent people from driving into the neighborhood and parking their cars all day (AKA "hide and ride.") Visitors will be able to park for free for between two and four hours. Residential permits will only be free, however, until 2011, when they'll probably revert to the current paid-permit system in place in other neighborhoods (known as Residential Parking Zones, or RPZs) all over the city. Currently, a permit costs a very reasonable $45 for two years, or $10 for people receiving financial assistance to pay food, housing, energy or medical bills. Find out if your neighborhood is in an RPZ on the city's web site.

Comments (12) RSS

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$45.00 is even more reasonable if you get the free red wine from your local QFC!

Posted by Rubbing ECB's nose in it forever! on April 8, 2009 at 12:43 PM

it's even more affordable if you live near Group Health on 15th and THEY pay the $45...heh,heh

Posted by michael strangeways on April 8, 2009 at 12:58 PM

I predict this will end up not being very effective, having once lived near to three different light rail stations in the Lower Mainland.

Besides, who on Capitol Hill needs a car?

I mean, seriously ...

Posted by Will in Seattle on April 8, 2009 at 1:14 PM

Parking for light rail! What a friggin' joke!

That more than anything shows the whole travesty is a profound waste of money.

What's the end game? A lite rail station in front of every home?!

Meanwhile Greggy is crying about a 4 billion deficit while having squandered 8 billion on this donnybrook!

Posted by Take The 'A' Train on April 8, 2009 at 2:16 PM

Amazingly, the parking permit for Capitol Hill Zone 4, seemingly home to everyone who loves to reduce free parking everywhere, is free. Why this is, I have no idea. I used to live in Eastlake and had to pay money for that zone's parking permit.

Posted by Brian in Seattle on April 8, 2009 at 2:50 PM

Doesn't this encourage people to drive 6 blocks to a light rail station instead of walking?

Posted by Trevor on April 8, 2009 at 3:49 PM

@5: Part of Zone 4 has their passes subsidized by Group Health, but not all of it. A fair number of the zones have similar setups with the businesses that use a lot of daytime parking - the UW now subsidizes the northern few blocks of the Eastlake RPZ, for example.

Posted by Nicholas on April 8, 2009 at 4:10 PM

so can we get a discount for our RPZ passes in Fremont, since we didn't get any light rail or even monorail?

Posted by Will in Seattle on April 8, 2009 at 4:23 PM

The theory behind Group Health or UW subsidizing RPZ permits is that those entities are causing the need for the RPZ (by creating a big increase in commuters who want to park in the area). At least that's the argument the South Seattle advocates have used for getting the permits subsidized.

@6--in the beginning, the RPZs are generally within a 1/4 mile radius. SDOT has said that they'll re-assess once light rail has been up and running to determine whether those boundaries need to be adjusted.

This is quite clearly a political decision made in an election year. What's interesting is that this has been an issue for a LONG time, and at the last minute, the Mayor has reacted to make a vote-winning decision. I'd like to see how much the city will be paying for this, and look at what else the city could do with that money.

Posted by Gidge on April 8, 2009 at 5:07 PM

Hmm $45 is 'very reasonable'? Sure, until you ask yourself why the RPZ program is not self funding when it is an enormous cash cow for the city, that is - an excuse to write squillions of parking tickets.

Posted by Rhizome on April 8, 2009 at 5:12 PM