The Downtown Seattle Association and a group of 14 business leaders are protesting the rate hikes for street parking, sending a letter today to the mayor and city council. You can read the entire thing in this .pdf. Here's an excerpt.

[W]e do not believe that increasing meter rates to $4.00 per hour Downtown, or $2.00 per hour in neighborhoods such as Fremont and the University District, is consistent with the policy objective established by the City Council nor do we believe the proposed increases are supported by SDOT’s study. Further, charging for on-street parking until 8 pm in some neighborhoods will directly impact many restaurants that bring pedestrian-scale vitality to our business districts.

The results of SDOT’s study demonstrate that occupancy levels in most Seattle neighborhoods fall below the threshold of 78% established by SDOT for a majority of the day. SDOT has indicated that their recommendation to increase rates is based on the occupancy levels at the point in the day when demand is greatest (“peak period”.) Setting all day rates based on the one hour of the day when demand is greatest is the equivalent of the Seattle Seahawks charging Super Bowl ticket prices for regular season games. We believe this approach is fundamentally flawed and will discourage people from parking in neighborhood business districts.

I'm skeptical that higher parking rates will drive shoppers and diners out of town, as the DSA argues. But I do agree on their specific point. As I've written before, the parking study released a couple weeks ago—intended to show that parking is at nearly 100 percent capacity and, therefore, higher rates will increase turnover—doesn't necessarily prove what the city claims it proves.