Michael Perkins - Greater Greater Washington

Parking innovation bypassing performance parking zones

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 13:22:00 EDT

During last Friday's online chat, DDOT Director Gabe Klein announced his intention to select a "parking czar" to manage the many pilot programs and other improvements to on-street parking in the District.

Photo by thetejon on Flickr.

We think this is an excellent idea to apply dedicated management staff to the issue of on-street parking. The many technology pilots, recent changes to evening parking rules, and more need management attention. And without it, DC's two performance parking pilot districts are being neglected.

In areas with high evening demand, DDOT made a sound policy decision to drop time limits in the evenings, allowing visitors to pay at a meter for as much time as they want. Those visitors can watch a show or have dinner without worrying about running out to "feed the meter" (which is illegal anyway), move their car or go home early. Combined with proper on-street pricing, this improves the usability of on-street parking by customers.

But the performance parking districts near the ballpark, Barracks Row and Columbia Heights were exempted from this change. Why? Certainly customers of the restaurants on Barracks Row, the Ballpark and evening entertainment at Columbia Heights have similar needs as customers in Georgetown or Adams Morgan.

Additionally, last year's budget approved higher meter prices in "premium demand" areas. The performance parking districts would also be considered "premium demand" according to data DDOT collected. In at least some blocks, prices ought to rise to ensure some availability and equalize supply and demand. In others, they should decrease. According to the act that created them, DDOT is supposed to adjust prices based on demand, but to my knowledge no price changes have ever happened.

The Council's intent for the performance parking districts was to bring innovative parking policies to those areas. Instead, the opposite has happened. Those have become a "time capsule," freezing parking policy as of 2008 while other areas are changing time limits, prices, even parking meter technologies.

The Performance Parking Pilot Districts are being left behind. Price increases will free up spaces to promote access, and provide revenue for local non-transportation improvements. Price decreases will make an area more affordable and provide a boost to local business.

DDOT sometimes argues that changing the meter prices is hard to do in "semi-real time," but they managed to change all the other meters in the city based on Council approval when budget pressures created an urgency.

DDOT should establish a regular process to review and change meter prices. Start out with adjusting quarterly. Even with maximum adjustments of 50¢/hr each calendar quarter, the prices will approach the most appropriate hourly charge for the District very quickly.

20 comments

Goodbye evening parking time limits, hello technology pilots (Jun 28, 2010)
DDOT releases ballpark parking report (Jan 25, 2010)
Performance parking but no spaces at Barracks Row (Nov 24, 2009)
Putting the performance back into the ballpark performance parking pilot (Mar 27, 2009)
DC budget abandons Shoup principles (Mar 26, 2009)

Metro morsels: SmarTrips and Gallery Place art

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 11:09:00 EDT

by David Alpert and Michael Perkins

This morning's WMATA Board meeting, as usual, brought up a number of small yet significant items.

Photo by brhefele on Flickr.

WMATA will sell SmarTrips at a loss: Last month, the WMATA Board voted to reduce the cost of SmarTrip cards to $2.50. That decision was made in part on information some staff told the Board that SmarTrip cards actually cost WMATA about $1.

However, a presentation today revealed that they actually cost $3.40. There is a reserve fund WMATA has created by saving up all the excess they've earned from the sale of earlier SmarTrips at $5, which will now start to be depleted.

Board Chair Peter Benjamin expressed some dismay that they had received this incorrect information and not been informed it was wrong earlier.

Today, CVS and Giant sell SmarTrips for $10, which come with $5 of stored value plus the $5 cost. They would like to keep the total retail cost at $10, so cards purchased there will come with $7.50 of stored value plus the $2.50 cost. Dispensers in the rail stations will also do the same thing, as they are not capable of providing change in coins.

"Making a gallery out of Gallery Place" (As Chris Zimmerman put it): Gallery Place-Chinatown will get a new piece of art by Martha Jackson Jarvis containing four panels depicting classic Chinese imagery:

The piece is free to Metro, funded by the Chinatown Community Cultural Center, Target, the DC Arts Commission and Pepco. It will be placed near the 7th and F entrance, the one to the arena.

Try passes on SmarTrip: Metro is looking for volunteers to try loading unlimited-use passes on a SmarTrip card. They're offering a free week if you buy three.

The program asks riders to provide a credit card number and a registered SmarTrip card number. When you sign up, the pass you select will be purchased and loaded automatically for the month of August. Passes will be activated when they're first used, and after five days the next pass will be purchased, ready to be activated when the previous one expires.

If you receive a transit subsidy as farecards or SmartBenefits, you won't be able to pay for your passes right now. If you have a pass on rail or bus, you'll need to use stored value to ride the other system. There will not be a transfer discount when using the pass.

38 comments

SmarTrip passes will start with bus (May 6, 2009)
What do SmarTrip cards cost? (Dec 12, 2008)
CVS will start selling Smartrip cards (Nov 17, 2008)
Is Metro selling SmarTrip at a profit? (Nov 8, 2008)
Metro passes will work with SmarTrip (Jul 19, 2008)

Metro fare guarantee could flush out system bugs

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 12:42:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

The first day of Metro's latest fare hike included a few minor software glitches, and riders reported various other inaccuracies. What would be an effective way to find and fix these problems quickly?

photo by kerri9494 on Flickr.

Metro could use the same tactic grocery stores use: Give your customers an incentive to point out your problems.

Here's how it could work: If you point out a problem where the fare charged didn't match what you were supposed to be charged, Metro would refund the entire fare. Customers can point out incorrect fares by asking a station manager for a "fare adjustment envelope."

This would compensate customers for their time, and would encourage people to point out issues even when it's not in their favor. Unlike an on-time service guarantee (such as arrival at your destination within 30 minutes of schedule), this one is inherently self-limiting. When people point out problems, Metro would have all the information needed to fix them. And they only need to get fixed once.

The GM should be able to implement this his own, with a notification to the Board but without prior approval. The policy helps Metro get its fare software updated with the help of over a million customers per day.

7 comments

Metro will look at the "invisible tunnel" "later this year" (Jun 29, 2010)
WMATA Board approves fare hikes, no service cuts (May 27, 2010)
WMATA releases more fare increase options (Mar 4, 2010)
WMATA budget deep dive, part 3: Fare proposals (Feb 25, 2010)
Metro faces big budget gap even with a fare hike (Sep 10, 2009)

How could Metro share regional bus pass revenue?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 14:39:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

Last week, we discussed why regional bus providers are unhappy with the current regional bus pass arrangement, and why some sort of revenue sharing agreement is vital to maintaining bus pass flexibility for customers. Today, we'll look into what some of the options are for a sharing proposal.

Photo by ryancr on Flickr.

First, we'll look at my recommended proposal. Under this proposal, it's best to think of the revenue that comes in to WMATA when people buy bus passes as a regional pool of money to pay for bus service, and the local providers qualify for a share of that pool by providing trips for bus pass holders.

The formula for this is pretty simple: For a given time period, take all the bus pass trips taken on a local transit provider's service, divide by the total bus trips taken using passes. That's the local provider's share. Then, total up the revenue that Metro gets from selling bus passes for a time period (say, a quarter or a month). Multiply the total revenue by the share, and that's the amount of revenue a local government should get.

This proposal is relatively simple, the data is already collected or will be easy to collect using SmarTrip passes. This idea encourages local transit companies to get more people using passes (so that there's a larger pool of revenue to share) and also to provide valuable transit service (so that the pass users choose their service, increasing their share).

Here are some other pass revenue sharing ideas:

There's always the status quo option. Transit providers can agree to accept Metro's pass but not demand any revenue, or they can opt out of the pass and sell their own passes. This would complicate our regional bus fare system. First, if other agencies issue their own passes, would they be available on SmarTrip? If so, would the pass be worth anything as a transfer to Metrorail or Metrobus? Conversely, if a Metrobus flash pass holder transfers to a local bus, would the rider have to pay full fare? Transfer fare? Or nothing? This is a bad option which would require a lot of new and complicated rules for passengers that should be avoided if possible.

Metro could agree to provide a full bus fare every time someone uses a pass on a regional provider. But this would give the local bus too much in the case of a transfer from rail or bus, and for heavy pass usage could result in Metro charging $15.00 to a rider for a pass, but paying out more than $15.00 to the local bus service, losing money on the deal. All the downside risk of overusage falls to Metro, so it's unlikely Metro would agree to this.

Alternatively, Metro could share an average bus revenue per trip with the local provider, which before the current round of fare increases was about $0.80 per ride. This still puts the downside risk of high usage on Metro, but provides the local provider somewhat less revenue than "full" reimbursement.

Maybe a better solution would be for the local bus providers to earn revenue as if they were a Metrobus (including transfers from rail or other buses). That way, a rider who normally commutes by a local bus to a Metrobus in the morning, and the reverse in the evening, would pay one fare to each provider per day.

To handle the problem of the potential risk residing only with Metrobus or the local provider, the risk of frequent pass usage could be shared between the two. After a pass has been used a certain number of times (say, ten), no more revenue would change hands. That way, if a person rides daily on ART only, ART would get ten rides worth of revenue, but would have to provide free trips after that, just like Metro would. On the other hand, if a person rides Metrobus ten times but takes some extra trips at the end of the week on ART, those ART trips would not have a revenue transfer, just like Metro gets no additional revenue for extra trips late in the week. In other words, the local provider accepts passes and can "earn" as much as the pass value in revenues by providing trips, but cannot "earn" more than the actual value of the pass, and has to share the pass revenue with other service providers that accept the pass.

I think the first proposal, where providers earn a share of the total pass pool, is technologically feasible, understandable, not administratively burdensome, and fundamentally fair.

13 comments

Arlington may quit regional bus pass without revenue deal (Jun 23, 2010)
"Peak of the peak" makes flexible passes more crucial (Jun 16, 2010)
SmarTrip Web site, passes coming this year (Jun 8, 2010)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 3: A new pass proposal (Dec 16, 2009)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 1: Passes today (Dec 15, 2009)

Goodbye evening parking time limits, hello technology pilots

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:03:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

Late on Friday, DDOT announced a number of small changes that move parking policy in DC a few steps forward.

Parkeon Strada meter. Photo from Parkeon Inc.

At meters in "premium demand zones," parking time limits won't apply after 6:30 pm. Drivers still have to pay for parking after that time, but can park for any amount of time. Premium demand zones include Adams Morgan, Georgetown, Chinatown, U Street, Friendship Heights, downtown, the Mall, and the waterfront area.

Update: DDOT emphasized that the time limits will remain in the ballpark and Columbia Heights performance parking pilot zones.

This is really great news. Parking time limits make little sense when your customers are out for a night of entertainment. It is better to have parking availability driven by appropriately set prices rather than force the turnover that time limits produce at a time when turnover isn't as desirable.

Time limits are expensive to enforce, requiring near-constant supervision by parking control officers. If the city enforces time limits too aggressively, the perception is that the enforcement is too harsh. But if the enforcement is too lax, then spaces are not available for use. By enforcing meter payment only, enforcement is easier and ticketing is somewhat more objective: you either have paid or you haven't.

One effect of this change is that where meters still take quarters, drivers will need a lot of them. Another effect could be that some spaces become too scarce once some people start parking for the whole evening. Five new technology pilots around the city will help with both occupancy tracking and easier payment. Many of these new meters are pay-by-space, and some include occupancy sensors allowing real-time and accurate measurements. Hopefully DDOT will put this to good use to adjust pricing based on demand.

For the National Mall area of Independence Avenue SW (in front of the Smithsonian Castle and art gallery buildings), and the newly opened Barracks Row parking lot (underneath the freeway), DDOT will be using Parkeon pay by space meters that also have a pay by phone option.

Pay by space is where the driver enters the number of their space in the meter, instead of having to put a receipt on the dashboard ("pay and display") like the current multispace meters. This is slightly more convenient by avoiding the need to return to the car with a receipt, and it offers the option of adding more time by cell phone.

However, when used for curbside parallel parking, it requires officially dividing the spaces by painting lines on the street, which forces greater separation between cars than is possible without lines. On the other hand, because the number of spaces is fixed, figuring out the occupancy ratio is easier.

Another feature touted on the vendor website is the ability to add time to your parking space from any compatible meter in the city with your space number.

The lot is right near my work, so I'll be riding over periodically to see how this works, and I'll request occupancy data from DDOT to see how the pricing is going. The initial pricing on the meter was the same as the on-street spaces which are much more convenient. I expect the lot to have low occupancy compared to the street, but there might be enough demand to fill them both.

For the Friendship Heights area, DDOT is testing pay-by-space meters with occupancy sensors by Duncan Solutions. The vendor website lists the ability to program the meters remotely, allowing adjustment of time limit policy or pricing without visiting each meter, something that is a limitation for implementing performance parking.

CALE meter. Photo from CALE Parking USA.

Right next to DDOT headquarters at 14th and U, they're trying out new license-plate meters by Cale Parking Systems USA. The vendor website does not offer much informtion about the pay by license plate option, and I have not heard of this technology through industry magazines like Parking Today or other parking related blogs (yes, I am a huge parking nerd). I assume that DDOT will address issues with privacy associated with using your license plate number. DDOT says that enforcement of spaces will use handheld or car-mounted devices.

For the Ballpark area, Reservoir Road NW and Foggy Bottom, DDOT appears to be moving away from having installed parking meters by partnering with ParkMobile to provide pay-by-cell or pay-by-app (iPhone or Blackberry only, no Android yet).

Pay by cell phone offers a lot of user convenience. You don't have to carry cash or change, you can add time from your phone, your phone can call or text you when your time is about to expire, and some systems allow you to call or text when you're done so the meter can stop running.

This requires no infrastructure other than signs giving the instructions for how to call in and pay. Multispace meters are expensive, which restricts the areas it can be used. Therefore, pay by phone is ideal for areas with lower traffic, or residential areas where neighbors would like to charge non-residents to park, but keep parking free for residents and therefore bringing in lower amounts of revenue.

When Donald Shoup, the parking guru and author of "The High Cost of Free Parking" last came to DC to speak at the National Building Museum, he got a chance to talk directly with the DDOT parking staff. Maybe it's a coincidence that DDOT is changing what they use to control parking from pay and display with manual occupancy counts to pay by space with occupancy sensors, which is better for implementing performance parking.

Dr. Shoup and I had lunch together with Mrs. Shoup soon after his meeting with DDOT, and we discussed the DDOT performance parking pilots. He said that part of the problem DDOT was having with the performance parking pilots was the manpower required to visit all of the parking meters to change the signs and programming when the rates change.

The new parking meter pilots show that DDOT is willing to experiment with a lot of different meter technologies at once. Some of these technologies are a perfect fit for easier implementation of performance parking, like pay-by-space including occupancy sensors. Hopefully, DDOT will use these technologies to learn about how people react to changes in parking pricing for implementation throughout the city.

33 comments

Pay by phone for parking in DC starting Monday (Apr 9, 2010)
Columbia Heights parking report needs more detail (Dec 7, 2009)
DDOT to discuss Columbia Heights parking pilot tonight (Dec 7, 2009)
Putting the performance back into the ballpark performance parking pilot (Mar 27, 2009)
Performance parking coming to Columbia Heights (Feb 22, 2008)

Arlington may quit regional bus pass without revenue deal

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 12:45:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

Metrobus pass holders currently enjoy free rides on all the regional bus transit providers, from DASH to Ride-On, Connector to "The Bus." Right now, WMATA does not share any pass revenue with those transit agencies.

Photo by BlindMadDog on Flickr.

This has become a sore point with Arlington's Chris Zimmerman, County Board Member and a member of the WMATA Board of Directors. At a recent committee meeting of the WMATA Board, he said,

The local providers have been honoring Metro's pass and not getting the revenue back that they're owed on the trip taken on their service ... We're having local providers say, "Look, I can't afford this any more." I'm having to look at cutting service because of increasing cost of running Metro anyway, and now we're losing hundreds of thousands of dollars.

According to Zimmerman, the regional operators agreed to honor the passes "more than a decade ago" under the belief that the paper flash passes would quickly switch to SmarTrip, allowing Metro to track the numbers of rides on each service and work out a revenue sharing deal. However, the passes on SmarTrip took far longer than expected, and now that passes are finally going on SmarTrip a decade later, the regional providers want that revenue agreement.

Under the Arlington County Board's recently approved transit fares, if a regional revenue sharing agreement cannot be reached, the County Transit system could withdraw from the regional bus pass and would issue a bus pass of its own. Combined with recent county efforts to replace Metrobus service with ART service, this degrades the value of a Metrobus flash pass, and hurts our regionally integrated transit system.

Board members Peter Benjamin from Maryland and Jim Graham from DC confirmed that those jurisdictions are interested in getting a share of pass revenue for the rides that are provided on local systems. Benjamin stated that the result would be "changing the subsidy level from local to Metro."

While it's true that this is all government money anyway, and any changes would be just payments from one government-subsidized transit system to another, the important thing is the amount of those transfers. Right now, the local governments provide service and get nothing from pass users. But a well-designed revenue sharing system would transfer revenues in a way that's related to how much service people are using, so a jurisdiction that provides service that a lot of riders are using would get a much larger transfer of revenue than one that doesn't provide much service.

Clearly, it would be preferable to maintain our region's interoperable passes, so some sort of revenue sharing needs to be devised. Tomorrow, I'll discuss some options and my recommended plan.

17 comments

How could Metro share regional bus pass revenue? (Jun 28, 2010)
"Peak of the peak" makes flexible passes more crucial (Jun 16, 2010)
SmarTrip Web site, passes coming this year (Jun 8, 2010)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 3: A new pass proposal (Dec 16, 2009)
SmarTrip passes will start with bus (May 6, 2009)

Fairfax County reluctant to release open transit data

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 13:20:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins and David Alpert

Fairfax County operates one of the largest suburban bus systems in the region. They could empower mobile app users and software developers to drive more riders to their services by publishing their transit information. Unfortunately, they are letting some misconceptions about open data stop them from taking this valuable step.

Photo by AnneBPhoto on Flickr.

Transit agencies have two separate yet related options for open data. They can release their schedule data publicly using the open General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS), which lets anyone build software applications and perform analyses, like this one of speeds versus stop density. The other is to sign an agreement with Google to be included in Google Transit.

Spokesperson Ellen Kamilakis explained Fairfax's concerns:

The historical problem with GTFS is that it is a Google-owned format. Using it gave all indemnities to Google (and not a lot—if any) to Fairfax. The County Attorney reviewed the license agreement and didn't think it was a good idea. You'll have to ask them [the county attorney] for more detailed information on their POV. There is also a small concern that if we publish the data in that format, we will have to publish it in other formats too, and right now we don't have the resources for that.

Ms. Kamilakis directed further questions to the county-level public affairs team, who said they're "looking into the issue."

It's important to separate out the two issues: a deal with Google, and publishing the data publicly in an open source way.

The GTFS format, while it was developed by Google in partnership with Portland's TriMet transit agency, is an open standard, usable by anyone who wants to publish their data. The specification for the standard is very basic and available to everyone. There is no proprietary technology involved. Governments do not have to sign any kind of agreement with Google or anyone else to publish data in the format.

Fairfax is reluctant to sign an agreement with Google that required indemnity. While we disagree with this decision, we understand their reluctance. But this only applies to participating in Google Transit, not to publishing data, which as above is something the county could do simultaneously or could not do at all.

WMATA has been publishing a feed for months without any Google agreement, and application developers have been able to use that data, though its non-open source friendly legal terms have prevented others. Fairfax could publish its data with no indemnification and no restrictions, as many other agencies have done, with no contract that its lawyers could object to.

If they publish data in the GTFS format, would Fairfax be asked to publish data in other formats? It's possible, but not likely. The GTFS format has become the de facto standard for publishing open transit data. It is very unlikely that many potential users of Fairfax's information would be unsatisfied with GTFS and demand another format. And if someone did, Fairfax would be completely within their rights as good public stewards to refuse requests that place unnecessary burdens on staff to produce formats that are not very popular.

The other issue is Google Transit. At the recent EMBARQ panel, DC CTO Bryan Sivak said that getting Circulator onto Google Transit simply required the will to push through the obstacles from lawyers on both sides. Lawyers' job is to raise all possible concerns about any contract. Sometimes, the job of those working with the lawyers is to determine which of these concerns are too trivial and outweighed by the public interest.

OpenTripPlanner.

On the other hand, Google really ought to stop asking for indemnification. They don't demand this from Web sites that want to be listed in their index, for example. Open source software developers have been working on OpenTripPlanner, an alternative trip planning system that doesn't require any contracts and indemnification, only open data feeds.

If most US transit agencies release their data in the open GTFS format without license restrictions, before long riders everywhere will be able to plan trips, track their buses and trains, and access other useful transit information using completely open tools that aren't dependent on Google or anyone else. That's good for everyone who lives and works in Fairfax County.

5 comments

Arlington releases open transit data, on Google soon (Apr 13, 2010)
WMATA, ART close to Google Transit participation (Feb 25, 2010)
ART to release unencumbered schedule data (Aug 11, 2009)
Where's Google Transit? (Jul 20, 2009)
Metro "punts": Will release transit schedule data for Google and others (Mar 11, 2009)

"Peak of the peak" makes flexible passes more crucial

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:33:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

The new "peak of the peak" surcharge is forcing Metro to adapt their existing weekly rail passes, which offer free rides up to $2.65 for the "Short Trip Pass" and free rides of any length for the Fast Pass.

A few of the passes sold by Metro.

At a WMATA Board committee meeting last week, staff announced their intention to let the passes apply during "peak of the peak" periods, but the passes will cost an additional $2 per week.

This will result in little change for most riders who use the pass to ride during the most crowded hours. Their fares were going up 15% plus the 20¢ surcharge each way anyway, so the new pass price costs the same compared to the price of ten one-way rides.

But for the riders that don't normally ride during peak times, the passes just became more expensive relative to the cost ten one-way rides. In essence, Metro assumes that everyone using the pass will be paying the peak of the peak surcharge.

Since Metro only sells three weekly passes, they had little choice. An unlimited weekly rail pass including the price of the peak surcharge would alienate those who use the pass but don't ride during peak, while selling the unlimited pass without the surcharge would allow pass riders to avoid the surcharge altogether.

A third option would have been to require the pass riders to pay the surcharge in cash at the Addfare machine, as they do when Short Trip Pass holders take longer trips, which would be a communications as well as a logistical nightmare for passengers.

This complication highlights the need for flexible passes. Once passes become available on SmarTrip cards, Metro is going to look at redesigning the passes to take advantage of the flexibility the electronic farecards allow.

In previous articles, I made some recommendations regarding passes, some of which included interesting but complicated additional thoughts regarding bulk and volume pricing. This time, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible.

Recommendation 1: Metro should let you choose a fare level (the "face value"), and then sell you a weekly pass for ten times the face value. The pass would be good for any ride less than that face value.

Recommendation 2: Metro should allow these passes to be used on any transit in the system. If the face value is over $1.50, it should work as a regular bus pass. If it's $5.00, it should work as an unlimited rail pass. Since the longest bus and rail ride including peak surcharge is $5.00 + $1.00 + $0.20, an "Unlimited Everything" pass should cost $62.00 per week.

Recommendation 3: Metro should establish an agreement with regional transit partners to transfer $1.00 to their account for the use of a pass on their buses. While the exact amount will be subject to negotiations, this is probably close to the average fare for the bus system after the recent fare increase, and it's the transfer fare.

Recommendation 4: Metro should consider bringing back the monthly pass at a price of four times the weekly pass, or forty times the face value.

With this system, Metro's pass system becomes simpler at the same time it becomes a perfect fit for any customer. No longer will Metro have to set the prices for two kinds of rail passes, a bus pass and their equivalents for elderly and disabled. We have reflected the region's goals once in the fare structure, charging more for peak service and for rail compared to bus. Now the pass system will reflect exactly the same values and goals without additional administration.

17 comments

SmarTrip Web site, passes coming this year (Jun 8, 2010)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 3: A new pass proposal (Dec 16, 2009)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 2: Benefits and principles (Dec 15, 2009)
Rethinking Metro's passes, part 1: Passes today (Dec 15, 2009)
Transit pricing: Time to go "all you can eat"? (Feb 26, 2009)

East Falls Church plan endorsed, but opponents mobilizing

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:30:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

Last night, the East Falls Church Planning Task Force overwhelmingly endorsed the draft plan to transform the East Falls Church Metro area into a mixed-use, pedestrian, bicycle and transit-oriented community.

It won't look like this, and actually.. yes.

Next, the plan will go to the Arlington County Board. If you support the plan, sign CSG's new petition to the Board.

It's particularly friendly to pedestrians and cyclists through wider sidewalks, on-street parking and bike lanes, as well as narrower streets to reduce car speeds. It will improve bicycle and pedestrian connections across I-66, creating better connections from the west. And the Metro station itself will get residential units, neighborhood retail services and a public square.

However, a local group opposed to the East Falls Church Area plan has been distributing flyers encouraging local residents to show their opposition. The flyers contain misleading information and statements that spread uncertainty about the project and its impact on the community.

Since the proponents of the development plan bear more of the burden of proof when it comes to advocating change, it is often enough for opponents to raise vague concerns about issues, rather than actually prove that there will be a problem.

The flyers exaggerate the impact this development will have on our community and dismiss the benefits we will get in return. This exaggeration misleads the local residents about the benefits of the plan. We'll get some retail we can walk to, and improvements in pedestrian and bicycle conditions. The traffic racing through our community will be calmed, proceeding at a much more reasonable pace.

We'll return a little bit to what we had before the highway was built, with a walkable community centered on its train station, with local amenities within a short walking distance, not a mile away at Westover or Seven Corners.

One flyer has a picture of a boxy tower with the caption, "Do you want a 9-story neighbor?" It states that the plan would allow "buildings" up to nine stories. The truth is that the plan would allow one building of up to 9 stories, but only far from houses and in exchange for a significant community benefit.

According to my discussions with a task force member, the task force was unhappy with the blocky look of a 6-story building, and agreed to allow some height farthest from Washington Blvd to allow the project to be shorter in areas closer to single family homes.

In exchange for the added height, the developer would construct a second Metro entrance on the west side of the station, estimated to cost $50-60 million. Without this increase in height, a developer could not afford such a project.

The flyer states that the task force has been working for several years, but that the process has recently accelerated. I suppose the perception of acceleration is because the process is now moving from the task force toward official approval. In the timeline put out by the task force in 2007 and 2008, the plan is years behind schedule.

In 2007, the report was scheduled to be before the Board in December 2008, and in 2008, it was expected in March of 2009. Even the schedule on the task force's current website has the plan slated to be before the board for approval last summer.

The flyer states that the actions would mean "Major changes to the character of the neighborhood." Building an interstate highway through the neighborhood also significantly altered the character of the neighborhood. There used to be a small commercial district surrounding the train station here. The plan would help restore some of what was lost when our neighborhood became centered not around a train station, but a freeway exit and a parking lot.

The flyer warns of "increased traffic congestion and spillover," but according to the transportation impact study produced as part of the planning process, that's what we're going to have even if we do nothing. According to the report, traffic conditions will continue to get worse through 2030, with more intersections and streets experiencing delays and congestion related problems. The study says the development would add very little to this traffic, and the local street and transit improvements are expected to reduce the effects of this addition.

The flyer warns of an impact on neighborhood parking. But we already have an issue with neighborhood parking where people might be tempted to park and use the Metro. This is already being managed by the resident permit program, and should continue. If the new development brings new challenges to parking in residential neighborhoods, the resident permit parking program has flexibility to allow the hours of enforcement, time limits, or other variations to handle site-specific conditions.

The plan adds quite a bit of on-street parking, which will provide some additional spaces for short-term use. On-street parking is also an important element of traffic calming, because it tends to visually narrow the streets and provide psychological clues to drivers to "slow down."

The flyer mentions pressure on local schools. However, the schools impact study stated that most students in the Arlington Public Schools system come from single family homes (57%) and "garden" apartments (21%). The new development units anticipated by the plan are mostly elevator apartments and townhouses, which have very low student occupancy rates.

According to the study, it's expected that the new development would likely bring between 34 and 38 new students, spread out among the various local elementary, middle and high schools, and would be mitigated somewhat by transfers into specialty, private or other choice schools. While I agree that the impact is not zero, I would argue that the number is surprisingly small.

The flyer states that the upcoming County Board meeting "is the only chance for the public to be heard," and "only a limited number may speak for two minutes," but the schedule posted on the county website provides many opportunities for public input. The Board will advertised the plan on Saturday June 12, or at the recessed hearing on Tuesday the 15th. Then it is reviewed by various citizen commissions, including a public hearing before the planning commission in late June. Final Board consideration comes mid-July. There have also been many chances at all public meetings of the task force since 2007, at the public meetings about the plan in April or May 2010, and there will be four more chances between now and adoption.

The flyer warns that we might "become another Clarendon or Ballston," but the densities in the plan are nowhere near that level. I was just in Ballston and Virginia Square last night and counted 18 stories at least for many buildings. Nowhere in the plan is there anything close to 18 stories. When I was in Virginia Square, I noted how much better the traffic was compared to where we live. It's not the tall buildings that bring traffic. It's the fact that we live inside a freeway interchange.

Overall, there are significant community benefits to be gained, and when you look at the effect this development will have on traffic, schools or parking, the issues brought up by local opponents turn out to be not as bad as one might fear.

88 comments

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Did you take economics?

Fri, 21 May 2010 15:18:00 EDT

by Michael Perkins

If you think free markets never work, you need to take an economics class. If you think free markets always work, you need to take another economics class. — Yoram Bauman, "The Cartoon Introduction to Economics"

Photo by JaulaDeArdilla.

A lot of the articles we have here deal with using economic incentives to deal with various market failures, like congestion, overuse of common space, or pollution.

For example, the argument for performance parking, congestion charging or HOT lanes is essentially an argument that allocating scarce resources using price is preferable to having congestion dictate who can use them, which is an argument you would get in a basic economics class.

Similarly, the imposition of taxes on economic bads like disposable plastic bags, carbon emissions, or sugary soda consumption could be argued from the standpoint that the socially optimal level of consumption is lower than the free market level, or equivalently that the marginal societal cost is higher than the personal cost. This is also an argument you'd hear in an introductory economics treatment.

So here's a basic question: Were you required in either high school or college to take an economics course? How did that course affect your thinking? I took economics in high school, loved it, then I took two more courses in college. Now I keep up by reading papers in public finance and tax policy, as well as economics-related subjects in planning, urban development and environmental policy.

58 comments

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