Parking and its discontents

The Associated Press reports, in "Cities rethink wisdom of 50s-era parking standards," on proposals before the Zoning Commission to reduce "mandatory" parking requirements associated with new construction. Generally, the requirements are based on suburban-oriented needs. The basics of DC's zoning regulations were laid down in 1958.

DC has a much higher percentage of residents using transit for its density, as a graph produced by "Guy" for Greater Greater Washington shows. (See "The outlier.")


It's hard, it seems, for some people, including Councilmember Brown (as discussed on Sunday), to grapple with the fact that the competitive advantage of DC is based upon transit, not automobility.

From the AP article:

Opponents say making parking more scarce will only make the city less hospitable. Commuters like Randy Michael of Catharpin, Va., complain they are already forced to circle for hours in some neighborhoods. "Today I had an 11:30 meeting and I had to plan an extra hour just to park" said Michael, 49. It ended up taking him 40 minutes to find a metered spot.

Then don't drive. Park somewhere outside of the city and take the subway. How hard is it to figure that out?

Note that traffic on DC streets, for the most part, except for the main arteries in and out of the city, is really not that bad at most hours of the day. (My anecdotal judge of this is my ability to bicycle through main street intersections against red lights during rush hour periods.)

From the article:

Parking requirements — known to planners as "parking minimums" — have been around since the 1950s. The theory is that if buildings don't provide their own parking, too many drivers will try to park on neighborhood streets. In practice, critics say, the requirements create an excess supply of parking, making it artificially cheap. That, the argument goes, encourages unnecessary driving and makes congestion worse. The standards also encourage people to build unsightly surface lots and garages instead of inviting storefronts and residential facades, they say. Walkers must dodge cars pulling in and out of driveways, and curb cuts eat up space that could otherwise be used for trees....

The D.C. proposal would eliminate minimum parking requirements with some exceptions. Caps on parking would also be established.

In old D.C. neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Georgetown, where parking is scarce, opponents of the change fear that if new homes don't provide off-street spots, competition for on-street parking will worsen. Ken Jarboe, a neighborhood leader from Capitol Hill, said the way to reduce traffic is to continue improving the transit system and to create incentives for people not to drive. "Simply saying, 'Let's make it more painful to park — it doesn't get you where you want to be," Jarboe said.


Photo taken at 4th and A Streets SE, Capitol Hill.

Sure it does. The best incentive to not drive is to make parking difficult.

And in the meantime, ANC Commissioners could suggest much higher fees for residential parking permits. And much higher fees for each additional residential parking permit awarded to a household. And much higher fees for larger vehicles. Until then, ANC Commissioners are part of the problem.

I will say it is very difficult to park in places like Capitol Hill. A house is an average of 15 feet wide, and a car, when you figure the amount of space in front and back, is about that wide too. So you can see how having more than one car per household mucks things up.