City officials have fielded more than 100,000 complaints about its parking meters already this year — an average of several gripes apiece for its aging stock of meters, and a huge increase in angered customers over recent years.
The District’s Department of Transportation has registered 104,659 beefs so far in 2008, according to summary reports issued by the citywide call center.
That’s almost seven gripes for each of the city’s 16,500 meters. And that smashes the yearly record for complaint calls with more than a month to go in 2008.
Parking meter-related grievances have soared steadily in recent years from 67,813 in 2006 to 94,049 in 2007 to the nearly 105,000 so far in 2008.
The long-term trend is even more shocking. In 1995, the city registered only 2,665 meter complaints, meaning the increase since then is more than 3,800 percent.
The most frequent complaints about meters, according to DDOT spokesman John Lisle: The machine is registering “fail,” is “dead” or jammed, or has skipped registering deposited coins. The agency, he said, receives 400 to 500 service requests every day.
Most of the District’s 16,000-plus single-space meters are at least a decade old and “were the first electronic mechanism utilized,” Lisle said in an e-mail to The Examiner. The number of complaints should decrease, he said, as DDOT installs more computerized multispace meters, which comprise less than 2 percent of the agency’s inventory.
“It’s no surprise that the number of complaints is up, because they’re all well past their life expectancy,” said Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations. “They’re a piece of junk.”
Lynch, who closely tracks parking meter outages, said he was driving along the National Mall last week, six kids in tow, looking for a parking space with a working meter. The first three he found were broken.
“The meter system is broken, and it’s costing the consumer and it’s costing the government,” Lynch said.
A 2006 report from D.C. Auditor Deborah Nichols found many meters were defaced, poorly maintained or inoperable. Of the 1,236 meters on seven routes examined by the auditor, 807, or 65 percent, had problems, and 197 were “completely inoperative.”
Texas-based ACS State and Local Solutions is in the second of a five-year, $20 million contract to maintain the District’s meters. The company is assessed an $11.98 fine for each day, after 72 hours, that a failing meter goes unfixed. Lisle said the company is meeting its contractual obligations.
Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, who has oversight of DDOT, is proposing to raise the downtown parking meter rate by 50 percent, from $1 to $1.50 per hour. ACS does not stand to receive a percentage of added revenues if Graham’s bill passes, Lisle said.
Through a spokesman, Graham said he was aware of the problem and would set up a hearing to “once again” go over the parking meter issues.
