One “vulture parker” delays hundreds of bus riders

I was waiting for an S4 bus on 16th Street NW last week, and it took at least ten minutes longer than the online system said it would. As I waited, I saw a long stream of other buses (S1 and S9) stop at the next stop to the north, then have to wait about a minute to merge into adjacent traffic, and often get delayed at the light. Why? A single SUV was stopped, lights flashing, right in front of the bus stop.

What was going on? I ventured to investigate. The SUV driver was sitting in the car, drinking coffee.

Aha: this area allows parking starting at 9:30 am. It was 9:20 and the car had been there since 9:15, maybe 9:10. Clearly, this person was waiting, vulture-like, for the moment when parking would become legal. Note that the sign says “no standing or parking,” and sitting there with lights flashing definitely constitutes “standing.”

Most likely this driver didn’t think she was doing anything so bad. But each 16th Street bus around 9:20 carries, let’s conservatively say 20 people. At least 200 people, therefore, lost a couple of minutes of time just because of this one driver.

This is far from uncommon. On a northbound ride on the 52 a few days earlier, I counted eight cars waiting, maybe “just to run into the store for a moment,” maybe loading or unloading, not in a legal spot, which blocked this bus and forced it to merge and miss lights over, and over, and over.

Unfortunately, the planned 16th Street bus lane project, while it will be a major step forward, won’t address this particular parking vulture. That’s because between U Street NW and P Street NW (and this was at Q), the planned bus lane will only be on the northbound side. People will still be able to park off-peak.

It’s possible DDOT could extend rush hour parking restrictions to more hours, as one approach that would at least mean vulturing would wait until a less crowded later hour.

But the fact is that this behavior was against the law. In this fiscal year, the Department of Public Works is getting new enforcement officers to address people blocking bike lanes, bus lanes, or other issues. Can enforcement address this and similar behaviors which happen every day, across the city? Or are bigger changes to 16th Street needed, beyond what’s already planned?