"Free and accessible street parking is an attractive feature of the Queen Anne business district for visitors, customers, and neighborhood residents." That line comes from a September 23 letter signed by the owners of Queen Anne Book Company, Betty Restaurant, Aluel Cellars, Bounty Kitchen and Stuhlberg's, along with the director of the Queen Anne Farmers Market, as The Urbanist reported. The letter asks the city not to add meters to the Avenue. The draft it responds to is the Seattle Department of Transportation's first full look at Upper Queen Anne's curb since 2008.
The letter and the draft agree on most of what should happen to the curb. They split on whether roughly eight blocks of the business district, along the Avenue from W Galer to McGraw and on parts of Boston and Crockett, should cost money to park on. The city's own survey numbers suggest that question matters most to the share of visitors who drive in.
What the Draft Would Actually Change
SDOT posted its draft recommendations on a page updated September 30, 2026, and says it will finalize the plan before installing changes in 2027. The project schedule puts installation in early 2027. The proposal sorts the business district's curb into three tiers:
| Curb type | Where | Rules under the draft |
|---|---|---|
| New paid parking | Queen Anne Ave N from W Galer to McGraw, both sides; Boston St on two segments off the Avenue; Crockett St from Queen Anne Ave N to 1st Ave N | 2-hour limit, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Monday through Saturday |
| Free, time-limited | W Galer between the Avenue and 1st Ave W; 1st Ave N from Boston to Crockett; Howe; the north side of Blaine; the south side of Garfield | Stays free, with the time limit now running until 8 p.m. |
| Load zones | Locations to be set with business input | 5-, 15- and 30-minute zones; 5-minute zones free |
The proposed starting rates are $1 an hour from 8 to 11 a.m. and $4 an hour from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. According to SDOT's FAQ, parking would stay free on Sundays, on City holidays and from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. Drivers could pay by card, coin or phone in 15-minute increments. SDOT would review rates two to three times a year and move them by 50 cents depending on how full the blocks are. The FAQ says the 5-minute zones are meant for places like coffee shops and businesses that do a lot of takeout. It also promises free four-hour accessible parking throughout Upper Queen Anne.
The Urbanist counts this, together with a parallel proposal for West Seattle's Alaska Junction, as the largest expansion of paid on-street parking in Seattle in at least a decade. Fewer than 2% of the city's streets have meters today.
The Curb Is Already Full
The case for meters starts with an April 2026 count. SDOT surveyed parking on Thursday, April 23, and found most blocks more than 70% full from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. In the 5 to 8 p.m. window, most of the streets studied were more than 86% full. As The Urbanist summarized the study, 11 of the 22 Upper Queen Anne blocks ran above 85%, and some went past 100%, meaning cars were parked in spots that aren't legal spaces. SDOT's target is to leave one or two open spaces on each block.
Demand has also grown recently. Compared with 2022, on-street parking demand in Upper Queen Anne has risen, mostly in the morning and early afternoon. The city's July 2026 existing-conditions report counts 302 on-street parking and loading spaces in the study area. Of those, 229 are two-hour spaces, 32 are loading spaces and 2 are ADA spaces.
That two-space figure shows up in the public comments. SDOT's September outreach summary quotes a visitor who saw only one disabled-parking space on Upper Queen Anne, with a white van usually parked in it. A business told SDOT that Trader Joe's delivery drivers had complained about carrier vans parked at Howe and Crockett, which made it unsafe and difficult for large trucks to turn into the alley loading dock. One resident said parking had become much harder since the apartment building above Safeway opened, and said they now often use the Safeway or Trader Joe's lots. That building is Gables Queen Anne, a 325-unit community over a 50,000-square-foot Safeway, which the Queen Anne Chamber announced as officially open on October 11.
Where the Letter and the Draft Agree
As KING 5 reported, the Queen Anne Chamber's letter asked for these fixes:
- Better visibility at intersections
- More accessible parking
- Larger loading zones
- Refreshed curb markings
- Stronger enforcement of existing parking rules
The first three are already in the draft, which includes clearing space near crossings, adding and improving load zones, and adding accessible parking. The letter, as quoted by The Urbanist, says business owners "support improving parking availability and turnover, but paid parking is not the only tool available." It argues that enforcement, loading zones, short-term pickup spaces and accessible parking "should be fully utilized before paid parking is considered."
So the disagreement is about order and price. The letter wants the cheaper fixes tried first. The draft does them alongside meters. Krijn De Jonge, the longtime owner of Queen Anne Book Company, put it in those terms when KOMO interviewed him. He said he supported better load zones, worried that meters could hurt quick-stop businesses such as coffee shops, and wished SDOT had asked for input earlier. Chamber representative Susan Short told KING 5 that 43 residents and businesses had signed on.
Who the Eight Blocks Serve
The surveys show how different the curb looks to different users. In April 2026, SDOT stopped 341 people on the street in Upper Queen Anne. 61% said they usually walk, bike or take transit there, and 38% said they usually drive and park. SDOT's online survey ran July 2 to 27 and drew 987 responses, 679 of them from residents. In that survey, 48% of residents said they usually walk to the business district, while most visitors said they drive.
Businesses answered differently. In the outreach summary, 76% of businesses said it was hard for their customers to find parking, and 51% said loading was hard. SDOT's project webpage reports a lower share for the first question, 61%, so the exact figure depends on which document you read.
Taken together, a resident walking to the Avenue for coffee and a shop owner waiting on a customer from Magnolia face different problems on the same eight blocks. The meters would apply to the customer who drives. The load zones and accessible spaces in the draft target the delivery van, the takeout pickup and the driver with a disability. Those are the uses the comments describe as squeezed hardest, and neither side opposes them. Josh Feit, writing at PubliCola, argued for extending demand-based pricing to Upper Queen Anne and pointed to the same finding that more than 60% of respondents arrived without driving. The Urbanist noted that today's two-hour rule only requires drivers to move after two hours, which does little to encourage turnover.
The Avenue's Fall Calendar Runs Under the Current Rules
None of this changes the curb before 2027. The Avenue's fall events will all happen under today's free two-hour rules, and several take place on the blocks the draft would price.
- Halloween Harvest Market, Saturday, October 31, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. The Queen Anne Farmers Market holds its regular Thursday season at W Crockett Street and Queen Anne Ave N, which would be a paid block under the draft. This year's Thursday season ended October 8.
- Fall Wine Walk, Saturday, November 7, 4 to 7 p.m. The Queen Anne Chamber's walk runs along Queen Anne Avenue N between McGraw and Galer, the same stretch proposed for meters. Check-in is at Bethany Presbyterian Church, 1818 Queen Anne Ave N.
- Thanksgiving Harvest Market, Saturday, November 21. This is the market's last scheduled Saturday of the season.
The market's director signed the September letter. Under the draft, a Saturday market like the one on Halloween would fall inside paid hours, at the $1 morning rate until 11 a.m. and $4 after that.
Questions the Draft Leaves Open
SDOT says it will meet with businesses and the public this fall, revise the recommendations over the winter and install any changes in 2027. The FAQ leaves the exact load-zone locations to that business outreach. The draft materials don't say how holders of Restricted Parking Zone permits would be treated on newly paid blocks, and SDOT hasn't posted a comment deadline. Residents can raise either question through the online comment form linked from the project page, by email at [email protected], or by phone at 206-684-7229.
Patricia Wallace keeps track of how changes along Queen Anne Avenue, from load zones to meters, affect day-to-day life near the business district. If you'd like to talk about what the 2027 curb plan could mean for a home on the hill, Patricia Wallace is available. Contact Patricia directly for a private consultation.
