Photo: KING
Via KING 5:
SEATTLE — Residents in Seattle’s Montlake neighborhood complain of a parking invasion. They say hide and parkers are capitalizing on their free street parking, leaving little room for the people who live there.
“All of a sudden there was this wave of people commuting in for the day by four or five in the morning,” said resident Greg…
Astrida Onat says
Not only that, but some one or more of them are using my garbage and recycling cans. Probably I am not alone in discovering unfamiliar garbage in cans I am paying for.
Nancy says
Can the city make those affected streets 2 hour parking with the exception of residents that have a permit on their car? We live on Montlake, and we have 2 hr. parking without a permit.
Lionel Job, MCC (departing member) says
The parking problem and the zoning are tied to the 2002 UW Transportation Master Plan. It describes two impact zones in Montlake: Primary (all the way south to Montlake School), and Secondary (south of the school + areas close to the Montlake Com Club). Residents in the Primary Impact zones are entitled to RPZ 1 (with some of the cost paid for by UW). In the secondary impact zone (Zone A), the UW participates a little but only covers parking enforcement for game days. 17 blocks south of the school have chosen to request Zone 1, entirely at their cost to offset the parking pressure put on their streets by UW employees parking there to avoid high UW parking fees (also explained in the Master plan as an attempt to encourage Single occupancy vehicle commuting). A domino effect ensues with the blocks not having Zone 1 taking the brunt of the parking load. We need one zone for all of Montlake, probably as far as Lee, and this must be included in the next UW Transportation Master Plan so that residents do not pay for a parking privilege free in all other residential neighborhoods. The city must help with this negotiation. The city employee charged with RPZ assignment is too low level to be expected to carry out this negotiation with UW. As with most of our transportation issues in Montlake, this is the result of a total absence of representation in the council, and of any kind of transportation and traffic impact planning for the area.