More increases could lie ahead in prime areas
Parking meter rates at $2 an hour in most locations and enforcement until 10 p.m. in the busiest corridors are the new realities for District drivers.
But the new rates might not last. The D.C. Department of Transportation is slowly advancing toward a performance-based parking system, one that varies the hourly cost of on-street spaces depending on demand.
“DDOT strongly believes that performance based parking will alter travel behavior by positively influencing customer mode choices as long as the department provides real choices such as increased mass transit and bicycle accessibility and walkable communities,” the agency stated in a recent report on the Columbia Heights performance-based parking program.
The Nationals Park area also is the subject of a performance parking zone: $2 for the first and fourth hours, $8 for the second and third.
» Adams Morgan
» Georgetown Historic District
» Penn Quarter/Chinatown
» U Street corridor
» Downtown Central Business District
» Maine Avenue and Water Street SW
» The National Mall
» Wisconsin Avenue NW
DDOT has found that a meter occupancy rate of 85 percent or more suggests fees should increase to free up curbside spaces. A lower rate implies that the price should be reduced.
Performance parking is a “useful tool to change people’s behavior” and there are other locations “where we might look at it,” John Lisle, DDOT spokesman, told The Examiner.
The District is raising rates at most of the city’s 17,000 meters to $2 an hour, expanding enforcement until 10 p.m. in eight “premium demand zones” and enforcing meter parking on Saturdays. The changes are expected to generate up to $7 million a year in additional revenue for the cash-strapped city.
Visiting drivers have already responded — they’re parking their cars on non-metered neighborhood streets on weekends.
“I’m concerned about the recent increases, Saturday enforcement and so on,” said Ward 1 D.C. Councilman Jim Graham, who has oversight of DDOT. “Because I’m getting reports … that it has caused an overflow problem in the neighborhoods.”
Higher meter rates in the business districts, Graham said, must be combined with more aggressive neighborhood enforcement. Parking is a complex balancing act, he said, and the performance zones need more study.
But there is talk of starting a program downtown. The Downtown Business Improvement District would support variable-rate meters if a percentage of the revenue generated was reinvested there, said Richard Bradley, the BID’s executive director.
“Parking is something that is really of value,” Bradley said. “We probably don’t value it appropriately.”
Meter rates should be high enough to ensure 20 percent of spaces are available at any time, said Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells. D.C. rates, he said, are generally too low to hit the mark.
“You want to discourage people who just feed the meters,” Wells said.
