Parking

Lauriol Parking Improvement District?

by David Alpert   •   February 15, 2008 11:58 am

I live a block from Lauriol Plaza, a Mexican restaurant popular for its large size, drinks, and outdoor and roof seating. On weekend evenings, parking is very scarce as scores of people drive to Lauriol and circle around and around the neighborhood streets in search of parking.

This is a great opportunity to try creative parking policy like a Parking Improvement District. If we charge visitors a reasonable but not oppressive fee to park in the area at busy times, it would encourage people to take Metro or buses, and raise revenue from everyone else that could go to improving the neighborhood. It's worked in Austin, Boulder and elsewhere, and it can work here.

In Boulder's CAGID, when the city market-priced the parking in the downtown business district, residents were concerned about "spillover parking" where shoppers would park in the adjacent neighborhoods. The solution was simple: create a residential parking district for the neighborhood. Residents could park for free as they had before, but others would pay. The revenue was dedicated to a neighborhood citizens' group, to pay for improvements to the area. According to Jason Schrieber of Nelson/Nygaard, residents and merchants became very supportive and even started using the street parking less themselves when leaving it available meant revenue for the neighborhood.

Making a plan like this work requires two major components. First, we must price the parking at an appropriate level to keep a few spaces open. If people don't have to cruise endlessly for parking, it will reduce traffic, and also make the area more attractive for people who do have to drive in. For them, the uncertainty of possibly requiring 30 minutes to find a space is more of a deterrent to visiting the area than simply having to pay a few dollars or more for parking.

The second key is dedicate the new revenue to local improvements. It could pay for upgrades to the streetscape on 18th Street, benefiting Lauriol and the other restaurants nearby, help maintain the upcoming 17th Street streetscape improvements, or benefit the community in other ways.

DC's residential parking zones are very large: as a resident of Ward 2, I can park for free for an unlimited amount of time anywhere from Georgetown to U Street to Mount Vernon Square. The zones ought to be smaller even for the current system, but especially under a new parking district, since it would defeat much of the purpose if people from Georgetown and other more distant neighborhood could park for free when visiting Lauriol (and vice versa, if similar districts appeared elsewhere). We could restrict it to residents of ANC 2B, the Dupont neighborhood, or the surrounding few Single-Member Districts, like 2B01, 2B03, 2B08, 1C01, 1C07, and 1C08. The latter would be fairest, but perhaps too complicated to fit on a sign and enforce.

If this is successful, it could become part of a larger 18th Street parking district that runs to Adams Morgan, and/or a larger Dupont Circle district including the shops on Connecticut Avenue. But with the combination of a big restaurant, a few small ones, and a lot of residential streets, this wouldn't be a bad place to start.

For more on parking policy, see this PowerPoint and this detailed paper (PDF).

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