Is it possible that the cars were actually there with the incoming population, but licensed elsewhere?
Maybe there is just no more place to fit additional cars anymore?
This is definitely part of it, parking is pretty hard to find in a lot of downtown. Depending on where you are, traffic can be really bad too, especially over some of the bridges. It’s a very hilly, coastal city limited by its geography in some ways. this video’s a cool explainer on it. The city only has flat land because it burnt down, was regraded, and built back up on top of the old city.
Seattle also just has a pretty good public light rail and bus system. It’s not perfect, but in places where coverage is good it’s great. The city should be leaning into it more, but it’s also very possible to move here and get by without a car. I also suspect (just from my own observation) more people move to Seattle who don’t own a car in the first place.
Isn’t 35000 people way too few for a big city in six years?
It’s about the cars, bruh
The title may be wrong, the article says 35,000 households. Idk what the average household size is but just guessing 2 that would be 70,000 people, about a 10% increase on the city’s population of 780,000.
You have to also consider they’re talking about the city proper, the metro area is around 4 million people and that area probably gained a lot more cars as it’s mostly suburbs.
The pandemic saw a lot of people moving out of higher-CoL areas. I wonder if that didn’t have a significant effect.
