The only meters here are downtown. In the neighborhoods surrounding downtown, they have "zoned" parking, which is completely annoying. If you live in the immediate area where you'd use the zoned spots every day, you get a pass to hang in your car and you park as long as you want. Without the pass, they have time limits.
Parking in downtown Seattle during the day is treacherous. They just made a huge section where I used to park into metered spots, when before it was just time limited and you could usually stay a long past the limit and not get in any trouble (an occasional ticket here or there). And now they're going to destroy the huge pay lot by my work to build a 40 story condo/retail office which means WAY more people and WAY less parking spots.
I'm about 4 months away from saying "fuck it" and getting a bus pass. I just hate the idea of being tied to the busses schedule.