Maria Moore

Review of Seattle Department of Transpor...

An unnecessary evil. I moved to Seattle from the E...

An unnecessary evil. I moved to Seattle from the East coast, and I found an apartment in downtown Seattle. In order for me to move in with the Pod I had shipped with my belongings, I had to pay $146 to the City of Seattle Street Use Permit as well as $218 to the Seattle Department of Transportation to use the metered parking space. A grand total of $364.00 plus change. I was told by a Traffic Permit Specialist that I would be able to get my money back if I didn't use the allotted days I had paid for. That was a bunch of lies just to extort more money out of my pocket!

I was mislead to believe I would be able to get my money back when the Traffic Specialist handed me her supervisor's business card when she told me I would need to speak to him. She didn't say no nor did she mention the rules of no refund. I spoke to the supervisor, and he kept saying that the rules have always been you never get a refund for the days you don't use. How was I supposed to know that?? I just moved to Seattle. The Supervisor exclaimed surprise that the Traffic Specialist I had spoken to would have told me about the refund considering the years and years she has worked there. Moreover, he was not gracious and his tone was derisive in accusing me of wasting his time due to the fact that his answer was no. When I pointed out to him that I just moved here, so how was I supposed to know about the rule of no refunds, he suddenly gave me an insincere, shallow apology, and then proceeding to insult me again. I do not appreciate the malicious, underhanded ploy to pay more but the SDOT employees feign ignorance in addition to not taking responsibility for their actions. The system is rigged against us, the Plebeians. The Latin expression: Caveat Emptor, "Buyer Beware" applies brilliantly to the employees working at and for SDOT.

Before my Pod arrived, I had to wait 2 days, so I already had paid for 2 days of unused space out of the 8 days I had paid for upfront. What I found interesting was that even though the spot was exclusively reserved for me, other people could still park on my spot. Despite their quote "Gorilla orange post on the corner" to notify everyone else that the spot was reserved so hence Do Not Park; the City of Seattle did not shut down the Parking Meter machine. In effect, they were double dipping with the $364 I had paid them upfront, and everyone else who paid for my reserved spot.

I contacted SDOT about the conundrum of other people parking on my reserved spot, and of course the City employees are going to blame the stupidity on everyone else. The Traffic Permit Specialist gave me the phone number to Parking Enforcement, which I come to find out is a farce. The whole department is ineffectual when it comes to enforcing their own nefarious and draconian rules. There was a car parked illegally in my space but the numbers I was given to contact the supposed "right department" doesn't exist. Everyone else kept saying...."you have the wrong department" even though another person from the City gave me your number. It was after 20 minutes of stressful google searches that I found a person who was decent enough to just contact non-emergency Police Officer to come down and write a ticket and a tow the vehicle out of my paid spot.

Everyone in my apartment building agrees with me that you can't even see the ridiculous "Gorilla Post", and the placement of it was confusing and misleading for many. I only wish Dante's Inferno and the different levels of Hell were true for the likes of SDOT employees & officials who rip off its law-abiding citizens.