But really it doesn’t do this, because what draws people to this area still draws people to this area in an area which demands cars or simply has cars with owners who like driving over other options. So, since the meters, the traffic feels pretty much the same as before.. Because what car owner, who isn’t put off by the high cost of maintaining a car, gas, and insurance, will be put off by 25 cents for 20, 30, 40, 60 minutes?

This little tourist town should have taken a look at its neighbor, NYC where pay doesn’t reduce use. We not only have meters on most of our commercial strips (poor and wealthy alike), but they are usually occupied at the “must pay” times. The fact that the city keeps raising the fees hasn’t curbed parking. Side streets are also filled with cars, but the cars belong to those who live there and a smattering of commercial users on the ends. This happens on my own street where I can ID neighborhood cars from interlopers.

The fact is that you would have to price cars in an extreme way to limit car parking on commercial strips. Incremental increases go largely unnoticed. People who don’t have a quarter, chance it, running in to the pizza place or deli to grab something fast.

As I managed an unusual drive to work at 60th and Broadway, yesterday, I realized that the best way to limit cars is to limit their mobility. Engineer traffic patterns that minimize freedom of movement. Traffic itself seems to rarely do this (if it did, would there be traffic?). This can only be done in a city that has a good system for getting around.

The idea of having neighborhood-specific streetscape improvement funds set up using parking pay station revenues may help to address the revenue grab perceived by some. Of course, the City would have to go along with this, and it would probably be in their best interest, perhaps requiring less time spent “studying” the issue. Really, what is there to study? Isn’t that a euphemism for how do we go about our business while pissing off the least amount of people possible.

Except that a bigger factor is people’s incomes. One person may not even notice the cost of parking all day, while another may debate whether they can afford an hour of parking when another shopping center has free parking.

As a West Seattle resident, I would point out a couple of issues with this particular example.

One concern raised is that turnover of parking spaces is NOT currently a problem in the Junction. If this happens, it will be a revenue grab by the City, pure and simple. Few folks and businesses are complaining that one can’t find a spot around the area when needed.

Another major concern is the elevation changes around our neighborhood and the number of seniors. There are several places that are 2+ miles from a grocery store, drugstore, post office, etc. It is not currently possible to get there by one bus. And the elevation change in that, say, 1.5 mile nice walk can be several hundred feet.

Actually, this isn’t so much a cars-vs.-transit issue. It’s about making the best possible use of a limited number of parking spots. If you take a limited resource but offer it for free, you create a market distortion. Someone who doesn’t really need the parking spot so badly uses it up for the maximum amount of time, keeping it away from someone who does need it badly–or make that multiple someones. The result: it becomes harder to park, and you get an inordinate amount of extra street traffic from drivers cruising for parking spots.

Put just enough of a price on a parking spot and you maximize the benefit it provides. Shoppers who most value their time and convenience can much more easily find a parking spot. Shoppers who are more cost-sensitive can park farther away or walk or take transit. But note that not all of, or even most of, those cost-sensitive shoppers are being made to shift to transit. Because the pricing maximizes the benefit the parking spot provides, you end up allowing more shoppers, not fewer, to take advantage of the parking spots.

For those who don’t know, WS Junction really still feels like a 50s drive up biz district. Most of it is still one story old buildings, and the density around it is only now arriving. Almost all of WS is singl-family, giving it a much more suburban feel.

So metered parking is a shift here. My hope is that some creative solutions can be embraced (more zip cars, shared structured parking, etc.)

I’m not all that familiar with West Seattle, but I’m guessing the Junction might be the border between the car-centric places and where it’s already possible to live in dense, walkable neighborhoods.