Seattle, WA Parking Rules: Loading Zones (2026)

040; or curb space parking as permitted elsewhere in Title 11. The same section draws a hard line the other way, 'The Director shall not authorize curb space parking permits for commercial purposes in the roadway', so a business cannot simply buy exclusive curb frontage for private commercial use. 440, 'Parking privileges,' works alongside it: it opens by declaring that no person shall be granted a franchise, special privilege, or permit to the exclusion of any other person for parking on any roadway, then lists the specific categories where SDOT can still grant a zone anyway, music venues, taxicabs, official career-consul vehicles, moving or loading, disabled persons, curb space parking including no-parking zones, service parking, carpool parking, car share parking, food vehicles, vending units, or an RPZ program.

It also lets the Director permit curb space for amenities like open space, landscaping, sanitation, or bike-share stations. Seattle's curb-management scheme therefore works as a closed list: SDOT can sign and mark curb for the specific purposes the Council enumerated in these two sections, coordinated through the studies of curb space utilization SDOT's Traffic Engineer is separately directed to conduct, but it cannot hand a single user permanent exclusive control of a curb segment outside that list. 72 and enforce whatever SDOT designates under this authority.