Parking
Councilmembers ask UDC for more parking, student limits
Residents around UDC got 6 of their elected officials to push for parking that city agencies and their own ANC don't think is necessary, and further pressure on the university to keep students away from other people in the neighborhood.
Photo by rachaelvoorhees on Flickr.
Greater Greater Washington has obtained a copy of a letter sent to UDC President Alan Sessoms on September 29 by Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh, Chairman Kwame Brown, and at-large members Michael Brown, David Catania, Phil Mendelson, and Vincent Orange.
The Zoning Commission approved UDC's campus plan back in June. Among other things, the plan calls for making UDC more of a residential campus, adding dorms and a student center. This will help DC's public university become a better school. However, neighbors still aren't satisfied, and got Cheh, Brown and the 4 at-large councilmembers to send a letter to UDC reiterating some of their demands.
The letter's first request is for UDC to add additional parking. During the campus plan process, the Zoning Commission and DDOT already decided that more parking was not necessary. And even the ANC voted to approve the plan without asking for more parking. The letter reads:
Traffic and parking are already a problem, and no new parking is envisioned in the University's campus plan. Notwithstanding the fact that the Zoning Commission and the District Department of Transportation concluded that additional parking is not required, the residents request that the University consider providing more parking in the ratios suggested by the Zoning Regulations, which is I space for every 5 beds. This additional parking would serve not only students but also those visiting the campus.As Lydia DePillis explained, UDC is serious about getting students not to bring cars. They will use market pricing on their parking lots, push Zipcar and transit, and more.
The councilmembers seem oblivious to this in their letter, however. I spoke to Cheh, who pointed out that UDC will continue to have large numbers of commuters, some of whom will drive. Surely some will, but surrounding residential streets are already restricted by Residential Permit Parking (RPP), so it shouldn't harm neighbors. The councilmembers seem to have bought into the residents' assumption that, a priori, more people requires more parking.
There are many policy tools to manage transportation demand that encourage more use of walking, biking, transit, and carpooling. Meanwhile, building parking is expensive, and it will surely induce more car trips. It's disappointing that the members chose to ask UDC to spend scarce public dollars on parking rather than any other, better measures.
Or, perhaps many of them simply didn't think very hard about it. Some of the at-large councilmembers, in particular, seem willing to sign on to virtually any letter by angry neighbors asking for restrictions on a local institution. Given the many benefits universities bring to DC, they should apply more of the careful scrutiny they bring to legislation to cases like this as well.
Some of the provisions of the letter make sense. Asking UDC to work with the community on construction impacts is a good idea. Also, the letter refers to a door from the new student center to the Metro which will let nearby residents pass through to get to and from trains.
The councilmembers ask UDC to consider both reducing the size of the dormitory and also signing no new leases for off-campus student housing. This is contradictory, unless the real goal is to keep the numbers of students low. UDC could build more dorms, or have more off-campus housing, but if it adds a certain number of residential students, it has to be one or the other.
Cheh said she strongly supports making DC universities more like many others around the country where most or all students live on campus. I went to such a school, and the residential experience was indeed a valuable part of college, though many who go to schools with more off-campus housing praise elements of that experience as well.
If DC's public policy is to promote on-campus living, however, we need to realistically provide a path for these campuses to increase on-campus living options. Residents near campuses, and their councilmembers, seem to simultaneously want no students living near campus, no buses traveling to and from campus, no new large buildings, and no expansion of the bounds of the campus.
That is just a recipe for stagnation in a city whose educational options are already more limited than in most other large northeast cities. It'll also just push educational institutions to build sprawling suburban campuses that take intellectual and cultural capital away from the walkable core of the region and induce far more driving.
 | David Alpert is the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Greater Greater Washington and Greater Greater Education. He worked as a Product Manager for Google for six years and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He loves the area which is, in many ways, greater than those others, and wants to see it become even greater.   |
Comments
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by andrew on Nov 2, 2011 2:19 pm • link • report
by Cavan on Nov 2, 2011 2:34 pm • link • report
by w on Nov 2, 2011 2:47 pm • link • report
UDC is literally ON-TOP of a Metro stop. Their campus is small compared with others in DC, but still has room to grow and these noble councilmembers want them to put in MORE parking?
by John M on Nov 2, 2011 3:06 pm • link • report
The councilmembers seem oblivious to this in their letter, however... The councilmembers seem to have bought into the residents' assumption that, a priori, more people requires more parking.
I don't know whether they are actually oblivious or whether they've bought into the assumptions of the Van Ness Battalion of the Pitchfork Brigade... most likely, they don't really care one way or the other. All they need to know is what side the people with the money and the votes (in that order) are on.
Some of the at-large councilmembers, in particular, seem willing to sign on to virtually any letter by angry neighbors asking for restrictions on a local institution.
Ding ding ding!
Given the many benefits universities bring to DC, they should apply more of the careful scrutiny they bring to legislation to cases like this as well.
Without commenting on whether or not said councilmembers actually 'apply careful scrutiny to legislation,' you can expect that this will not happen until universities start making sizable donations to those councilmembers' constituent services funds and the universities' top administrators start making personal donations to the councilmembers' campaign accounts.
The councilmembers ask UDC to consider both reducing the size of the dormitory and also signing no new leases for off-campus student housing. This is contradictory, unless the real goal is to keep the numbers of students low.
No one said they were particularly subtle or secretive in revealing their true goals.
If DC's public policy is to promote on-campus living, however, we need to realistically provide a path for these campuses to increase on-campus living options.
If you ever run into such an animal as "DC public policy," please let me know. I've yet to find it with respect to practically anything. The DC Comprehensive Plan is, at this point, more malleable than even the Bible in terms of being cited in support of whatever particular parties want, no matter how contradictory or mutually exclusive.
by Dizzy on Nov 2, 2011 3:21 pm • link • report
2. Deny it funding and facilities.
3. Bemoan lack of good universities.
4. Get re-elected!
by Neil Flanagan on Nov 2, 2011 3:39 pm • link • report
Here is a plan outline for Cambridge U in the UK:
- http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/em/travel/plan/Travel_Plan_2011.pdf
- and this paper from Australia.
http://www.patrec.org/web_docs/atrf/papers/2004/Curtis%20&%20Holling%20(2004).pdf
by Richard Layman on Nov 2, 2011 4:30 pm • link • report
Isn't really obvious (to most of us at least) that having a Metro stop is not a good substitute for adequate parking. Sure, it'll help the few who actually prefer to use Metro (or have to use Metro for whatever reason), but it does the vast majority of people no good. Saying you don't need more parking because there's a Metro stop there is like saying you don't need an airport in a city because it has CaBi-like bike rentals around. Sure, it'll be a substitute for a few odd-ball segments of the population of the total universe we're looking at statistically, but it isn't useful to the regular, normal, majority of that population.
by Lance on Nov 2, 2011 4:40 pm • link • report
by Canaan on Nov 2, 2011 4:50 pm • link • report
From my experiences at UDC, I would wager that definately most of its body choose metro. Other than GWU, you can't get better transit to door options. I never realized that the lack of parking was a real concern. Maybe more evening students drive than day students?
Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but does this plan really call for nonstudents (residents) to be able to access the metro station through the actual school? That doesn't sound like a particularly great idea. I'm not a student but I get to walk through the school to get to the train?
by HogWash on Nov 2, 2011 4:57 pm • link • report
1. 37% of DC households don't have cars.
2. Some apartment buildings have 80%+ of households with no cars.
3. Activity centers at Metro stations can have 50% or higher mode split from transit.
WRT the last point, then, how the f*** are transit users not "regular, normal, majority of the population" IN THE CITY, because that is what we are talking about.
Granted UDC is a "commuter school" so it will have a greater proportion of students traveling by car. Even so, given that a majority of its students are from the city and that many people, especially in the age group typifying college students, don't own cars, planning primarily to accommodate the automobile is a foolish strategy.
Your point about parking is like what Target thought about DC/USA. So now DC has to pay off a $42 million loan that was used to build 1,000 parking spaces, 2/3 of which are not used.
TDM.
http://www.travelsmart.gov.au/universities/pubs/universities.pdf
by Richard Layman on Nov 2, 2011 4:58 pm • link • report
by spookiness on Nov 2, 2011 5:38 pm • link • report
by John on Nov 2, 2011 5:42 pm • link • report
The issue here is the creation of residences with students living on campus. Presumably some of them may want cars, just as apartment dwellers do. So it's not commuters to the school but people living there who may (or may not) create neighborhood parking issues.
by ah on Nov 2, 2011 5:53 pm • link • report
Says who? You? I think it's a wonderful use? But who cares what I think or what you think? It's up to the people who live there to decide. Maybe they'd rather not have more students there period. (And the university has no inherent right to grow at the expense of its neighbors. If it did, it wouldn't need a campus plan and the like ...) And the neighbors are looking at the lots as a good compromise to allow the university to grow without its growth coming all at their expense ... ? Isn't that a good thing if you really care about that university wanting to grow? Oh wait, I forgot GGW ... just care about getting their increased densities ... They don't care about the real stateholders' needs and wants ... just their own insasible quest to increase density because ... well, just because ...
by Lance on Nov 2, 2011 6:41 pm • link • report
As we mature as a city, if we're to survive as a vital and integrated part of the growing Washington DC metro area, we need to be positioning ourselves to offer what most of the people in this metro area want. And if you've spent even one day outside the confines of DC, you'll know that that's NOT dependency on other peoples schedules and routes. Yeah we could try catering to the odd-balls, but is that a good idea? Probably not ...
by Lance on Nov 2, 2011 6:46 pm • link • report
I couldn't agree more. We District residents have really thrown away a great opportunity over the last decade or so. We could have cultivated our edge areas like U Street, Penn Quarter, and now H Street to become something with a bit of appeal to mainstream American's (like Bailey's Crossroads, for example).
Instead we've thrown away that opportunity in attracting all sorts of freaks and social deviants. I went out on H Street last Saturday night, and it was like I was in a horror movie or carnival of some kind. You couldn't pick your way down the sidewalk because of the throngs of deviants--many of whom were dressed in freakish costumes!
Worse, we *keep* making the same mistakes year after year. I believe it was Einstein who said insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Every time I go to Eastern Market on a weekend afternoon, I'm shocked and saddened by the parade of weirdos who throng the place. Worse yet, it attracts such marginal characters from around the region.
Enough, I say! Enough...
by oboe on Nov 2, 2011 7:48 pm • link • report
There's a Ross Dress for less right next to H St.
There's a Target in Columbia Heights and Walmarts are about to come.
You can go to Potbelly in Penn Quarter.
Mainstream America isn't just in the suburbs, you know.
by mch on Nov 2, 2011 8:48 pm • link • report
by Phil on Nov 2, 2011 8:57 pm • link • report
I do not think it is up to the local residents to decide what is best for their community. Certainly local residents should have significant input on planning, zoning and other quality of life issues in their neighborhood. At the same time, there is a balance for what is best for the city and region.
The ANC, as the officially elected local body, is the one that has the voice and great weight on such matters. Ultimately, however, these are political decisions that come down to the Mayor (Office of Planning) and Council.
If everything were left to the local communities, we would probably still have shells of burnt out properties at 14th and U, in Columbia Heights and on H Street.
I prefer the alternative.
by William on Nov 2, 2011 11:01 pm • link • report
There are very few universities where "all" students live on campus and, in fact, most of the universities (or colleges) where "most" live on campus tend to be small liberal arts colleges, not major public universities. (It is more common for perhaps 20% to 40% of students in major publics to be on campus -- a fair number of freshmen and some sophomores.) I'm not suggesting UDC shouldn't build housing, but given its demographic, a really important factor is going to be housing affordability, and it ain't cheap to build urban student housing. So it's very cavalier to suggest that the University house most or all of its students.
At the same time, if Cheh supports making DC universities more like those who house "most or all" on campus, why has she backed down and bowed to neighbor pressure to reduce the number of students that AU wants to house on its campus?
Some consistency, please??
by Really?? on Nov 3, 2011 6:34 am • link • report
For the center city to thrive, it needs to focus on maintaining and extending those qualities which allow the city to thrive on its terms. It's not to make it over as an auto sewer, or to put it more politely, the city can't ever compete with the suburbs on their terms, instead it has to redefine the debate and position accordingly.
First, the city was designed and mostly built during the walking (1800-1890) and streetcar/transit (1890-1920) city eras. [Muller, P.O. “Transportation and urban form: Stages in the spatial evolution of the American metropolis,” in Susan Hanson and Genevieve Giuliano, eds., The Geography of Urban Transportation (New York: Guilford Press, 3rd rev. ed., 2004), pp. 59-85.]
So for the most part center cities, especially Washington, DC, were designed to optimize trips by walking, biking, and transit.
To focus mobility on the car, which is the way that the outside of the city part of the metropolitan region functions for the most part, eviscerates the natural competitive advantages that the city has.
The city needs to strengthen its focus on walking, biking, and transit at every opportunity, not diminish it.
What I find really disconcerting in all these kinds of arguments (and you are not the only one who makes equally uninformed statements) is the failure to acknowledge and recognize that the suburbs that are focused on repositioning their places to remain competitive in the 21st century are refocusing their planning energies towards "urbanizing" and redeveloping large swathes of their communities in patterns more akin to the walking city era of city design.
Bethesda Row was one of the first examples--it's the best of city design but removing people of lower income.
But you see in plans for change in White Flint and along Rockville Pike, and for Tysons Corner, including the addition of heavy rail transit, recognition that automobility focused land use and transportation planning paradigms are no longer sustainable.
If you really believe the city should suburbanize, instead you should just move to the suburbs and be more congruent with your beliefs and the planning paradigm. (I'd recommend moving to a part of Montgomery County represented by Marc Elrich, who seems to be committed to keeping Montgomery County traditionally suburban).
FWIW, these are the competitive advantages that I believe DC has:
1. historic architecture;
2. urban design from the walking city era, which optimizes sustainable mobility;
3. historicity, identity, authenticity;
4. a rich transit infrastructure which allows people to get around without having to be auto-dependent;
5. the steady employment engine of the federal government.
In those terms, it's why I always promote historic preservation and transit expansion, and believe in working to accommodate new development in ways that complement extant places through appropriate infill development, and maximizing proximity to transit.
WRT whether or not the pro-transit/walking/biking mobility strategy works, given that on most DC streets, except during rush periods, there isn't much motor vehicle traffic, I would aver that it does.
ANyway, your beliefs "prove" my statement that most people have been imprinted with the suburban planning paradigm of deconcentrated, separated uses, connected through massive road systems and the personally owned automobile, and that when they move to the city, not recognizing they are imprinted nor recognizing that the suburban paradigm is inappropriate to city issues, apply it willy-nilly to what should be decidedly "urban" questions decided on urban, not suburban, planning criteria.
by Richard Layman on Nov 3, 2011 7:14 am • link • report
"And if you've spent even one day outside the confines of DC, you'll know that that's NOT dependency on other peoples schedules and routes."
This statement is compeltely irrelevant. Why does what happen outside of DC matter because if the people who live in DC wanted to live like the people who are outside of DC, they would live there. Instead they choose to live in DC.
You love accusing people of not understanding other people's perspective but you refuse to understand that the perspective of people who like living in a dense city and that is why decided to live in one.
by nathaniel on Nov 3, 2011 9:52 am • link • report
by Miriam on Nov 3, 2011 10:14 am • link • report
ANC 3F didn't actually vote to approve the UDC campus plan. We continued to argue for better parking demand management; inclusion of building 52 (formerly Wilson High School's temorary location and now the UDC Law School) in the campus plan; and numerous other matters, some of which are included in the letter from the Councilmembers. However, at no point did we ask for or support additional parking.
Two years ago, the DC community college was at the Van Ness campus. When the DCCC was spun off, the number of students at Van Ness was roughly cut in half. UDC would like to increase the number of students to the old level and keep the same amount of parking.
With more incentives to take Metro (rail and bus), car pool, bike, and walk to UDC, there shouldn't be a need for additional parking. Parking tends to attract more cars, and in turn more congestion, which we could do without.
There are ways to manage on-street parking and enforcement, but keeping the the number of students low and strictly commuter doesn't address that problem.
As noted by others, parking is also very expensive. It would be a better use of resources to build better buildings, add amenities, or establish better maintainence than build more parking.
-Commissioner Bob Summersgill, ANC 3F07
by Bob Summersgill on Nov 3, 2011 11:23 am • link • report
Saying you don't need more parking because there's a Metro stop there is like saying you don't need an airport in a city because it has CaBi-like bike rentals around.
What a bizarre illustration to use... Do you have any idea how far off that is? I lived in the Van Ness area for 2 years and noticed little increase in parked cars during classes. Yes, people park on Van Ness St, but those are metered spots. If you want to talk about problematic parking, look at Van Ness St by the Archstone apartments, where they charge $200/month for a spot, so everyone double-parks on the street.
Students are less likely to drive than other demographic groups, period. There is a rapid rail line below the school as well as 4 bus lines that go by (as well as a possible Circulator expansion line). Parking would be redundant at best, wasting taxes/tuition at worst.
by John M on Nov 3, 2011 11:36 am • link • report
If they were to limit the parking to people having something to do with UDC there would be plenty of room. I know people that used to park in the UDC parking lot and afterwards head to Van Ness Station going downtown. I dont know if it is still possible but it was done for the past 10 years.
by kk on Nov 3, 2011 8:46 pm • link • report
by Richard Layman on Nov 4, 2011 6:04 am • link • report
So it harms neighbors that their fellow Washingtonians go to school after work? DC hates schools. Period.
by Jasper on Nov 4, 2011 7:03 am • link • report
Neighborhood streets are not private property of the neighborhood. They are city streets. Open to anyone.
by Jasper on Nov 4, 2011 7:06 am • link • report
by John on Nov 4, 2011 9:54 am • link • report
Sounds like an efficient use of precious, city-wide on-street parking to me. If you wanted to reduce that short-term usage, how about installing meters?
by Alex B. on Nov 4, 2011 10:09 am • link • report
by Jasper on Nov 4, 2011 10:27 am • link • report
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