The Seattle Times editorial board thinks a buck an hour increase in downtown parking meter rates is too much, to which I say: damn commies!
I mean, whatever happened to supply and demand? If the city leased out these spots to a private company, what do you think they’d be charging an hour? Buck fifty? Two bucks? Two-fifty? I don’t think so.
Even at $2.50 and hour, downtown parkers will drive around in circles looking for a street spot rather than paying two to four times that rate for a short term spot in a private lot. So quit your grousing and stop trying to force your decadent, free-parking, Plateau values on the rest of us.
If you make parking too cheap then downtown workers will just re-up every two hours. I saw it all the time during my various stints working downtown.
Downtown retailers hate that. They want customers to cycle in and out of those spots.
The city should price parking just a little lower than private parking. This would have the beneficial effect of enhancing city revenues while encouraging people to use public transit for both working and shopping.
I hate Downtown Seattle.
But the citizens already paid for the streets, didn’t they?
Now they must “rent” a hunk of a street they already paid for?
I love watching you KLOWNS struggle over these life & death issues. No wonder Seattle is turning into such a dungheap.
2 – What an idiot. Parking isn’t life and death, at least in 99.9 percent of the cases.
Like I said, your buddies in the “free market”, the retailers, are all for an increase in parking commensurate with motivating downtown workers to use public transit.
@2 Once again, Republicans don’t want to pay for the services they demand.
I hate having to pay for parking, but it’s a necessary evil. I could take the bus, but I’m willing to pay for the privilege of driving. And last I checked, being able to drive on public streets is not a right in the constitution.
Cynical @2,
Again, supply and demand. Parking meters are as much a means of rationing a scarce resource as they are a source of revenue.
4 – I don’t like paying for parking myself. I always take the bus downtown.
Tell me again- how is this price increase conducive to shopping in downtown Seattle?
@6 I take the bus downtown, too. But I never shop downtown. As a feeble old rabbit hobbling around with a walking stick how could I possibly carry shopping bags on a bus?
7 – It’s a disincentive to downtown workers filling up the meter every two hours. The retail customer shopping for expensive evening wear isn’t going to mind the hit especially if it’s just slightly less expensive than private lot parking.
Dang it, Goldy, don’t you know that subsidized transportation is only socialist if it’s for mass transit? Mass transit should pay for itself or never be built!!!! If it’s for private cars, it’s capitalist, by definition! All highways and parking should be paid for by the government, and free for use by private cars, preferably single-occupant ones!!!!!!! It’s the only legitimate use of tax money – to pay for a road free of other vehicles from my house to every place I plan to drive to, and nowhere else!!!!!!
@10. LOL! Good one.
Ugg. I cannot believe I just wrote LOL. What was I thinking? I have got to get more sleep!
Tell me again- how is this price increase conducive to shopping in downtown Seattle?
Great! Let’s cut some police officers from the budget instead, maybe some street cleaning! I’m sure a dirty, crime infested downtown with cheap parking would draw TONS of shoppers!
By the by, you taken a look at what it costs to park in a Diamond/Republic lot for a couple of hours?
13 “Great! Let’s cut some police officers from the budget instead, maybe some street cleaning!”
They’re doing that anyway.
Blue John–
Yup, typing LOL is mighty gay.
My daughter did that as a teen.
Perhaps you are coming out of the closet and revealing your feminine side?
I’m just sayin’!
It isn’t just about downtown. There are meters in Ballard, Lower QA, and other neighborhoods. If you know where to look pay lots in non-downtown areas can be cheaper.
Speaking of The Times, it looks like one of their headlines from earlier this year was a pile of crap.
#13-epony coward: I am an eastsider. My rhetorical question was how are high parking fees gonna get me to shop or do business in Seattle?
@2
Streets must be maintained. And usually streets are purchased on credit, unless the state just happens to have billions of dollars just laying around, gathering dust. So future taxes and fees are used to pay for streets we approved years before.
Street parking will still be cheaper than private lots. Then again, some of those lot owners should be providing free massages for the prices they expect you to pay.