15th Ave E changes a little more slowly than the rest of Capitol Hill but the neighborhood is in the middle of a transformation including redevelopment and, yes, a full overhaul of street parking to address what the city says is near overwhelming demand around its commercial core.
The Seattle Department of Transportation announced that crews will begin installing new parking kiosks, signs, and paint starting next week, Tuesday, October 10th to mark “two-hour paid parking” on 15th Ave E from E Denny Way to E Mercer.
The west side of 16th Ave E from E Denny Way to E Thomas will also get the treatment. The Residential Zone 4 Parking will remain in effect in the surrounding area.
The changes will mean new habits for those who drive to the area or residents and workers who have been jockeying with each other for street parking in the area around a mix of businesses including longtimers like Rainbow Remedies, Victrola, Coastal Kitchen, Hopvine, Jamjuree, and Liberty to relative newcomers like Ada’s Technical Bookstore, and Uncle Ike’s, to the latest additions like Windthrow, Creature Consignment, and Meliora.
“The project aims to address the growing demand for parking by visitors and customers, provide more reliable access at the curb, and enhance the overall parking experience for customers, visitors, and commercial delivery drivers,” SDOT says.
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The work will stretch out over “several days” but the change will be near immediate. “Paid parking stations will begin accepting payment once installed and payment will be required,” SDOT promises.
(Image: SDOT)
The transformation will change some of the last major stretches of un-metered street parking in Capitol Hill’s commercial neighborhoods as SDOT has continued its efforts to use paid parking to help balance demand that often exceeds capacity at peak hours in the most popular, most populated areas of the Hill. Earlier this year, CHS reported on the city’s small jump in parking rates around Capitol Hill neighborhoods as officials have slowly restored pricing to pre-pandemic levels.
Around 15th, drivers will pay morning rates from 8 to 11 AM of $0.50/hour, afternoon rates from 11 AM to 5 PM of $2/hour, and evening rates from 5 to 8 PM of $2/hour — a relative bargain to the Broadway and Pike/Pine core’s $4.50/hour night rates. The 15th Ave E zones will also only be active until 8 PM.
Parking in the 15th Ave E core has been a growing challenge even as many people walk, bike, or bus through the area. A handful of businesses have also made the switch to use adjacent street parking for food pick-up and cafe and patio spaces, prioritizing more room for customers over paces to store cars.
SDOT says the changes were made after study results showed that the existing 1-hour and 2-hour on-street parking time limits were “no longer enough to manage on-street parking demand and access in the neighborhood around 15th Ave E.”
(Image: SDOT)
The new payment layout was designed with feedback from area businesses including a survey (PDF) conducted this summer. “We heard that customers, commercial delivery drivers, and the growing population of the neighborhood all need more reliable access to on-street parking and load zones,” SDOT’s announcement said. “We also heard that load zones are often used by parked vehicles and that more load zones are needed for goods and passengers.”
A top concern raised in the survey process remains unsolved, however. Many businesses expressed concern about the “financial impact to employees who currently park on 15th Ave E, especially those in entry-level positions,” SDOT says. Ideas like discounted parking for workers aren’t currently on the table.
The 15th Ave E Business Improvement Association was briefed on the paid parking plan this summer, SDOT says. CHS reported here on the 2021 formation of the new BIA. The high turnover paid parking should create is expected to be a benefit to areas businesses.
How the change will impact streets around the core as Capitol Hill transition to areas of single-family style housing is less clear.
The parking changes are also part of preparing for a population boom around 15th. New development is underway including the mixed-use project replacing the old Hilltop Service Station that is expected to wrap up construction mid-2024 and add 70 new apartment units to the neighborhood along with new commercial space. Across the street and down a block or two, developer Hunters Capital is also planning a 150-unit mixed-use project on the block currently home to 15th’s shuttered QFC and a mix of businesses including a Rudy’s Barbershop and ShopRite. Farther south, 330 units and a new 50,000-square-foot grocery store are part of the plans for a set of twin buildings planned to rise where the corner’s Safeway and its huge surface parking lot stand today — if the neighboring New Age church’s appeal of the project doesn’t stick.
Just get rid of street parking, and give more space to bikes and pedestrians. The extended curb bulbs at 15th & Harrison make that area feel so much better to walk around.
And where should your disabled neighbors park when they come to visit those businesses on 15th?
Cute concern trolling technique here. Last I checked, busses have ability to seat disabled persons.
Does it top privilege?
Businesses have deliveries, not everyone has the luxury of being able to carry all their groceries on the bus/Amazon delivers. It is great that you can live in a privileged bubble where you can do everything by bus; but sit back and consider that not everyone else lives such a charmed life.
“seat disabled persons”?
Do you mean that the bus has limited ability to handle some types individuals who have a certain class of mobility challenges? And the visual queues for individuals with hearing issues are universal? Or…
The bus does not work for everyone, and no one owes it to anyone to explain their reasons, check the privilege.
Lol – another nonsense concern trolling argument. Taking the bus instead of driving is a luxury now!
Cars are literally the most privileged and least accessible form of transportation on our streets. Parking them everywhere uses up space that could be used to make the streets and sidewalks around these businesses more accessible to more people. Nice try though.
There is plenty of space to walk and bike on 15th. 15th is a slow speed environment with wide enough lanes where cyclists can comfortably ride and cars can slowly and safely pass them. We don’t need segregated bicycle freeways on 15th to race through this commercial district, all street users can share the calm slow speed street design as we have now.
Plus I would rather support local pedestrian-oriented retail on 15th with reasonable street parking which calms the street than ruin their businesses removing it and pushing all retail to drive-to shopping centers on the outskirts. And I say this as someone who doesn’t own a car, uses the 8, 10, 43 daily, lives right by 15th and walks daily to 15th Ave businesses.
There’s plenty of room to walk only if you walk single file, which is hardly a good pedestrian oriented street. The places where it expands (like where parking was removed for extended curb bulbs at Harrison) are the exception, not the standard.
As for parking as street calming, do you remember when a car drove into Coastal Kitchen? It hopped the curb crossed the narrow sidewalk and crashed through the front door, closing the restaurant for months. Is it really perfect as-is?
And the maybe two spaces in front of each business are hardly providing the bulk of customers. As you wrote, you walk to 15th Ave businesses. So do I. So do most customers. I challenge you to provide an example (backed up by evidence, not local tv news squawking) of a street becoming better for pedestrians and bikes by removing street parking that didn’t see improved business.
Just a thought DD15, but I think all those businesses on 15th somewhat rely on people coming from other areas to shop. Having some parking on 15th helps that. And it doesn’t then push all parking to the already crowded residential streets.
Or, just hear me out, we don’t concern ourselves at all with cars and utilize busses.
Chill homie. We love our gas powered cars and don’t need little pansies fighting to reduce tha quality of life for ALL people.
SDOT and the city has $$ in their eyes after so many of their projects have gone over budget.
Good lord, between this and the traffic cameras, the extortion is becoming even more apparent.
ban cars on 15th. Enough already.
I live just off the proposed parking-fee area and haven’t really noticed increased parking demand in the neighborhood. Still, the proposed rates seem reasonable. Hopefully it doesn’t cause everyone to try and park away from 15th.
I don’t really think this is going to change anything other than increasing some ticket and parking revenue for the city and making backups more likely as people try and park.
Hardly anybody long term parks on that stretch, even for a few hours. It will certainly lead to more backups as people try and back into a parallel spot as turnover increases.
There’s also the private lot people use and pay for when there is no street parking. To me, this just seems like an attempt from the city to get that revenue. Any impact on businesses positive or negative is just secondary.
As long as it’s not viewed primarily as a cash cow, but rather to use a pricing mechanism to manage parking demand with reasonable rates I’m all for it. The key is getting turnover for the spaces and being able to find a convenient space when you want one which is what paid street parking successfully does.
As for the argument that it hurts low income people… BS, pay the modest parking fee or take the bus.
Boooooo street parking
They should extend metering for more of the street. Getting cars off the street would provide more opportunities for the street cleaners to do their job.
Meter all the way down to the cemetery and then we would see less trash piled up along the park.
Why are all the streets around here free / almost free (that’s RPZ) parking? Why is it it free for some of my personal property to take up public space but not other personal property?
It’s cool we’ve waived parking requirements, but the elephant in the room is that it just means people expect to park free on street. It’s not going to work.