There will be some changes coming to the paid parking rates and times in Capitol Hill and along 12th Avenue. CHS covered SDOT’s study of parking in the area a while back.

Changes are happening soon though!  From SDOT’s website:

Coming Soon – New Pre-Payment Options:  Coming in February and March 2011, with deployment of the new rates, the hours that pay stations collect payment will change. Pay stations will close at 6pm as they do now, but they will re-open at 10pm to allow pre-payment for the first two hours the next morning.
(Author note: This was recommended as part of the Mayor’s new Nightlife Initiative so that when someone realizes they have had too much to drink, they can leave their car overnight and pre-pay for a couple hours of parking in the morning, allowing them to sleep off their hangover until 10am instead of having to get the car at 8am when the meters start running.  Brilliant.)

Coming Soon – Evening Rate: Seattle’s center city and many neighborhood business districts are active destinations for customers and visitors well into the evening. Charging in the evening will enhance parking turnover and access in areas with an active nightlife and other evening businesses. Extended paid parking into the evening until 8pm is coming to the Commercial Core, Belltown, Pioneer Square, Chinatown/International District, Broadway, Pike-Pine, Uptown, and the University District. This effort will roll out starting in April 2011 and continue through September 2011.

Street parking on 12th Avenue and around Swedish Cherry Hill went up to $1.50 per hour with the hours of 8am to 6pm remaining the same.  Parking rate changes began in January so they should be effective currently.

Street parking in Pike/Pine increased to $2.00/hour and around Broadway to $3.00 per hour.  In April, you’ll need to feed the meter until 8pm.  (The later hours starts in April but implementation looks like it’ll take some time and continue to roll-out throughout the summer.)

Check the posted hours on the meters closely when parking!

Here’s the parking map from SDOT.

The 12th Avenue Stewardship will not be meeting at its usual time (the second Tuesday) this month.

Instead, we encourage all of you to take the time to attend a special town hall meeting with King County Councilmember Larry Phillips discussing transit, future budget issues, and findings from the regional task force.

Click here for more information.

Tuesday, November 9
6:30pm
Seattle University Campion Ballroom
914 E Jefferson Street

Map here

While this will be a larger conversation about King County Metro, we may have the chance to bring up 12th Avenue and Central Area transit needs, particularly the opportunity to move a bus line to 12th Avenue when the First Hill Streetcar is finished in a few years on Broadway.

Hope to see you next Tuesday at this important meeting!

SDOT is in the process of painting new bike lanes on Union Street from Broadway to 14th as noted on the attached drawings. More exciting though are the bike boxes that will soon be painted on Madison Street at 12th Avenue.

A bike box is located right behind the crosswalk at intersections and allows bikes to pedal ahead of cars waiting at red lights. Bikes waiting in front of cars are much easier to see and hopefully a lot less likely to get hit by cars taking right turns on the red lights.

Looks like more bike boxes are planned for Pine Street at 12th. Check out the Seattle Bike Blog for more info on other bike boxes coming in around Seattle.

Union-Madison bike lane map

Union 13th 14th bike lane map

On Monday April 5th Mayor McGinn officially endorsed the Broadway Two-Way Streetcar Alignment (map below) for the First Hill Streetcar. This comes after the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) presented the same recommendation to him in mid-March. The official SDOT  recommendation package can be found here.

Broadway Two-Way Alignment

With this recommendation the Broadway-12th Ave Couplet seems nearly dead, but it is important to note that McGinn made a clear commitment to north/south transit on 12th in his letter to City Council here.

The 12th Avenue Stewardship Committee is currently strategizing about how to influence the discussion regarding moving a Metro bus route to 12th. An update will be provided on this at the next meeting on Tuesday, April 13th at 5:30pm at the Seattle U A+A Building (824 12th, corner of 12th and Marion). Please join us if you would like to get more involved in this issue!

There’s an opportunity to comment on the City’s proposed changes to the restricted parking zone on Capitol Hill, which includes a section of 12th Avenue between John and Pine Streets. Please click here for more details and a map of the proposed changes.

Meeting details:
Tuesday, March 9th
6:30pm – 8:00pm
Seattle Central Community College, Room 1110

The 12th Avenue Stewardship Committee meets at 5:30pm the same evening but we should be finished in time for you to head over here afterwards and let your comments be heard on parking.

There’s more on the First Hill-Capitol Hill Streetcar in the Seattle PI recently. There’s a lot of the same information in this article that folks probably know already. However, there are some more public meetings coming up if you haven’t weighed in regarding your alignment preference.

Looks like these are open houses so please stop by anytime during the times below to share your comments and ask your questions.

Tuesday, Feb. 9th
4:00pm – 7:00pm
Union Station
401 S. Jackson Street

Thursday, Feb. 11th
11:30am – 1:00pm
and then later from

4:00pm – 7:00pm
Seattle First Baptist Church
1111 Harvard Avenue

As always, there’s more info and a place for public comment here at the Seattle Streetcar website.

12th Avenue loop map

There’s more today on the Stranger’s Slog about the 12th Avenue streetcar loop.

If you have questions, comments or opinions regarding the streetcar route, please considering sharing them with the good folks at SDOT via the Seattle Streetcar site . There’s also tons of good information on this site regarding routes, density, bicycle integration and project schedule.

Check out this Stranger article advocating for a streetcar on 12th Avenue! This is the first in a month-long series of articles in the Stranger outlining critical "marching orders" for City leaders. We’re excited that the 12th Avenue streetcar made the first group!