The Seattle Department of Transportation is currently surveying the opinions of both business owners and customers about parking. How do you decide where to park? What are your needs if you are a business owner? How can the parking situation be made better? Fill out a survey here. The survey should take about 10-15 minutes to complete.

The survey is part of an SDOT study of performance-based parking pricing strategies. In performance-based pricing, parking rates are adjusted depending on a set of data-driven characteristics. For example, rates could change by time of day or location, or seasonally. The expected result of the variable rates is to increase parking availability, and decrease the time drivers spend circling the block in search of a parking spot. This not only decreases the pollution caused by this practice, but also eliminates a fair amount of traffic. (This 2007 New York Times op-ed suggests that drivers searching for curb parking are about 30 percent of the traffic in central business districts.)