Graham “intrigued” by RPP improvement ideas

The discussion at Wednesday’s DC Council hearing ranged across the full spectrum of parking topics: resident-only parking blocks, smaller RPP zones, the 72-hour rule, Emergency No Parking signs, the price of RPP stickers, loading zones, and more. Chairman Jim Graham seemed to approach the hearing with a very open mind, saying he was “intrigued” by at least some of the ideas.

Graham contrasted his views on parking with those of his father. Graham said, “My father believed he had an inalienable right to park in front of our house,” despite having a driveway. If someone came to visit, Graham’s dad expected the visitor to get that space, and if someone else parked there, he’d angrily ask who was squatting in “his” space. “He had great animosity about parking meters,” Graham added. “He believed he should have free parking at home and free parking at work.” Recognizing that times have changed, “That’s now an old-fashioned view about the rights of automobile drivers,” he admitted. “We’re now marching to a very different view of what parking is about.”

The idea that most “intrigued” Graham was smaller RPP zones. As she did in our interview, ANC Commissioner-elect Anne-Marie Bairstow of Woodley Park explained how people from all over Ward 3 park in Woodley all day to ride the metro - clearly not the intent of Residential Permit Parking. According to Bairstown, Dr. Gridlock once published a letter from a resident of the Palisades upset because her block wasn’t RPP-designated. But the letter writer wasn’t having trouble parking at her house; instead, her neighbors could drive to their offices in Friendship Heights and park for free on the surrounding neighborhood streets, while (being ineligible for a Ward 3 RPP sticker) she couldn’t.

The intent of the RPP system is to help residents find parking near their homes, not to enable some commutes and not others. I used to live at 18th and Swann, which switched from Ward 1 to Ward 2 in 2002. Why would I have had an “inalienable right” to park for free on residential streets in Columbia Heights before 2002, but not in Georgetown, and then after 2002 an inalienable right to park in Georgetown but not Columbia Heights? This defies logic. Zones the size of a neighborhood (perhaps by ANC) would give enough flexibility while also making resident parking for actual residents.

Commissioners Brianne Nadeau, of the U Street area, and Jack McKay, of Mount Pleasant, both brought up the cheap price of RPP stickers. McKay’s next-door neighbor owns four cars, and parks them all on the street for $15 each per year. An off-street parking space in Dupont rents for about $200-250 per month, or up to $3,000 per year, while we underprice these on-street spaces for only $15.

Nadeau also criticized the city’s policy of having no RPP restrictions around parks. DDOT’s policy is “that people visiting [the parks] should be able to park for an unlimited length of time,” she said. “I don’t think that is realistic.” I agree. In a neighborhood like Nadeau’s, having unrestricted parking around a park doesn’t mean that park users get to park in those spaces. Instead, it means that some people, especially residents who haven’t registered their cars in DC, simply leave their cars around those parks for long periods of time.

Much of the discussion focused on performance parking, the main purpose of the hearing. According to GGW contributor Michael Perkins, who testified, DC could probably earn $75,000 per year for a typical block downtown with performance parking. By comparing nearby garages and other area business districts, Perkins estimated that each space could easily rent for $2.50 per hour. At eight hours a day, discounted to account for some cheating and spaces not always being full, times 240 business days per year, each space could earn $3,600 per year. That’s a lot of revenue.

Perkins lives in Arlington, and therefore doesn’t pay taxes to DC. But he would happily pay to park on the street, if paying would ensure him a good chance at finding a convenient space. Constitution Avenue, Adams Morgan, and other areas with high numbers of visitors and few spaces are perfect for performance parking. Charles Brazee, of the Adams Morgan Professional Association and Adams Morgan Partnership, felt that area businesses would be willing to try performance parking. What they wouldn’t like, on the other hand, is simply dedicating some blocks to RPP-only (instead of allowing anyone to park for two hours as today), since that would limit parking for business patrons with no corresponding benefit to the businesses.

Ellen Jones, Transportation Director for the Downtown BID, talked about congestion. Downtown, much of the congestion stems from trucks double parking for deliveries and services, said Jones. She recommends a downtown commercial vehicle (“performance loading”) pilot zone, with the revenue applied directly to improve downtown. “Surface transit is the victim of our downtown congestion,” said Jones. “Yes, private automobiles do sit in traffic, but it’s the inefficiency of our bus service that keeps people from utilizing [buses].”

Graham was clearly in the mood to think creatively. He asked about extending RPP hours or even “reversing” them in areas like Mount Pleasant or Adams Morgan, so the restrictions would apply at night instead of during the day (when parking is plentiful). He pondered the possibility of reinstating the 72-hour rule (that limits on-street parking to 72 hours) and said he is close to introducing legislation to limit Emergency No Parking abus.

At the same time, Graham still showed more interest in solutions that keep parking free, but perhaps more restricted, than solutions that use pricing as a tool to balance supply and demand. He’s still very happy with the large, cheap to park but expensive to build garage in Columbia Heights, and even Bairstow praised it. Just as our thinking about parking has come a long way since Graham’s father’s (still common) viewpoint, there’s still a long way to go.

Many residents and elected officials (like Michael Brown) still assume the solution to scarce parking is more parking. But more and more people realize that the better solution is less dependence on driving. Nadeau mentioned a new building at 14th and Florida marketing itself as “zero commute,” where people can work from home. As Nadeau put it, projects like that, and hearings like this one, are “changing the conversation around parking.” We’re making a lot of progress.