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Get inside scoop on the best time to find parking!

New interactive map feature!

The 2017 annual report on paid parking, our yearly data extravaganza summarizing parking availability around town, came with a ✨NEW✨ feature! We’ve designed an interactive map that lets you zoom in, neighborhood-by-neighborhood for a detailed breakdown of parking data.

 

So when are you likely to find ??

Want to know at what times of day you’re likely to find paid parking available or unavailable? You can:

  • Drag your cursor for parking details over any one of our 30 paid parking areas from Ballard to the Chinatown/International District.
  • Find the number of spots, the percentage of spots that are generally used during the morning, afternoon, and evening.
  • See the average time people stay parked in the spots and the percentage of spots that are taken up by car share vehicles.

Our innovative Performance-Based Parking Pricing Program, that launched in 2010, is all about finding the parking sweet spot to ensure that on-street paid parking is well used, but you can reliably find an available spot near your destination. Our target is between 70-85% of parking spaces occupied.

By tracking how full parking areas are, we can use price to try to encourage available parking spaces and charge a lower rate when there is less demand. Each year we adjust hourly rates up or down by 50 cents depending on what the data shows. In 2017 we implemented 15 rate increases, 20 rate decreases, and 5 areas had hours extended later into the evening.

You can read the whole On-Street Paid Parking Occupancy 2017 Annual Report here. We’re currently getting ready for collecting 2018 parking data this spring to guide our next round of rate changes this fall. Stay tuned!