Updated with comments from Rick Sheridan, a spokesman with SDOT.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed that last week’s street parking study by the Seattle Department of Transportation, which claimed the city needs to raise rates up to $4 an hour to increase parking availability, used a dubious interpretation of the data. A city council member and business leaders also say the study didn’t jibe with the council’s intent to free-up parking spaces downtown.

Today, several sources at City Hall say officials will roll out a new set of lower proposed parking rates tomorrow or Friday. And SDOT spokesman Rick Sheridan confirms that SDOT is "is taking a critical look at policy direction, methodology, data, for setting on street parking rates." Sheridan confirms that an announcement about parking rate modifications will likely occur in the next several days, but says that the modifications will probably not delay SDOT's plan to systematically implement new rates in neighborhoods beginning February 1.

“As we were digging into the data, we saw some refinements that could be made to reach the council intent,” says Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien. “I think there will be a revised parking rate schedule.”

The proposed increase was set to take place next month, hiking rates from $2.50 and hour to $4 an hour in some neighborhoods. There's no word yet on how much lower the rates will be, which will come with a hit to the city budget.

The study claims that peak occupancy is highest in First Hill (100 percent) and the downtown core (97 percent), when calculating for the busiest blocks at the busiest time of year. But the study’s hard data from last November found that, on average in those neighborhoods—even under the old rates—we have about 15 percent parking free.

“Personally, when I saw the data,” O’Brien says, “I was surprised by the availability of parking in some neighborhoods.”

The Downtown Seattle Association held a forum at City Hall this afternoon, packed with small business owners assailing the higher parking rates as poisonous to prosperity.