Parking

On Wednesday, Bremerton ditched parking mandates, letting builders choose housing over excessive parking. Following in the footsteps of cities like Spokane, Port Townsend, and Bellingham, the move sets Bremerton up to prioritize housing needs and improving multimodal travel options.

Small but mighty Port Townsend appears to be the first city in Washington State to have fully ditched its off-street parking requirements.

In approving a unanimous update to its Comprehensive Plan, the Shoreline City Council is set to go well beyond the minimum requirements of state law in pursuit of creating additional housing options and more vibrant neighborhoods.

Despite being a longtime parking reform leader, Seattle is set to require off-street parking, even as it unlocks significant housing capacity near transit. This will make housing harder to build.

Cities across the country are ditching arbitrary requirements around how many parking spaces must be built with new housing, but Spokane is the first major Washington city to take the plunge. Will others follow?

JCTP is Bremerton’s 30-year transportation vision. It gets a lot of things right, but has some gaps. The Joint Compatibility Transportation Plan (JCTP) is a...

Reforms being considered by Bremerton as part of this year's major planning update include eliminating parking mandates, removing height limits in downtown, and expanding neighborhoods where additional density is allowed.

When what is now downtown Bellingham was initially platted in the mid-1800s, it is likely that little consideration was given to parking. Mostly because...