D.C. adopts first-ever valet parking rules
By: Michael Neibauer
Examiner Staff Writer
June 30, 2009
D.C. businesses will have the option of renting on-street parking spaces to set up valet staging areas under new rules adopted by the District's Department of Transportation.
The regulations establish a first-ever permitting system for ongoing valet service or one-time event valet parking. The decision whether to issue the permit is left to the city's public space committee, an arm of DDOT.
Valet parking companies in D.C. have never faced regulation, which has sparked turmoil on some streets. There is "often confusion and conflict arising from the competing demands for the limited curbside public space," DDOT spokesman John Lisle said Monday, and valet service "often interferes with the safe and efficient operation of the transportation network."
Under the rules adopted last week, every business seeking a permit must provide the public space committee with photos of the proposed staging area, a traffic flow plan and proof that the applicant has secured off-street parking for every valeted vehicle. The permit costs 50 cents per hour per 20 linear feet of street to be taken away.
DDOT anticipates 100 businesses will apply immediately, and each is likely to need two or three spaces for its staging area. A business that runs a valet service without a permit faces a $300 fine, and those caught parking cars on the street face a $250 penalty.
The rules clarify a "real gray zone" in the law, said Ellen Jones, director of transportation programs with the Downtown Business Improvement District. They will "make things more predictable, make things more safe," Jones said, and spur garages to open up at night.
But what works downtown might not translate to D.C.'s neighborhoods.
Renting what is already a scarcity of public parking space in Adams Morgan may "create a certain degree of mayhem," said Bryan Weaver, chairman of the Adams Morgan advisory neighborhood commission. The good news, he said: The community's 73 licensed restaurants and bars are unlikely to secure enough off-street parking for each to provide valet service.
"It would be something that each of them would want to have there," Weaver said. "This doesn't seem to fit into the city's master plan of trying to work on walkable and public transit communities."
Lee Brian Reba, Woodley Park advisory neighborhood commissioner, said he is looking forward to some enforcement. Along Connecticut Avenue, he said, valet services often block several lanes of traffic, and cars are parked on residential streets.
