Photo by mayhem.

Some people believe that performance parking is about “jacking up” parking prices to “discourage people from parking” in metered spaces and “make it even tougher” to find parking. That’s totally incorrect. In fact, performance parking makes it easier to find parking by ensuring that the parking spaces aren’t all filled up. That’s a tough point to get across, and it becomes even tougher when the person in charge of running the performance parking pilot and speaking to the press and the community couches his explanations in bad frames.

Last night, DDOT’s Damon Harvey presented an update on the Columbia Heights performance parking zone to residents and business owners in that neighborhood. Already, the program has raised $14,293.96 for local improvements and paid back about a third of the cost of the multi-space meters. And that’s without setting market rates at all. According to Harvey, the commercial streets in Columbia Heights have 95% parking occupancy, which means that most of the time, there aren’t any spaces available for shoppers who’d like to park and quickly dash into a store, instead of going all the way into the DC USA garage.

Columbia Heights was supposed to be the easy case. There’s no shortage of parking. There’s a whole garage that’s almost always practically empty. It’s really cheap, too, and it’s right in the center of the commercial district. Managing curbside rates to ensure availability only makes it easier for short-term parkers to use the on-street spaces, without really hurting longer-term parkers at all, who have such an easy and cheap alternative.

According to the performance parking legislation, it’s time to set a rate to ensure that people can find a street space if, for whatever reason, they really want it. Maybe they have an injury that makes walking even a block or two difficult, or are in a particular hurry. Today, those folks are stuck, since there aren’t spaces for them at all. Performance parking is supposed to help them, and help the businesses who want them to want to drive to Columbia Heights. It’s about giving people more choices, not fewer: choices between parking for a higher price on the street, or at a lower price in the garage.

But if you listen to DDOT’s Damon Harvey, adding choice isn’t the point, it’s removing choice. He told FOX 5, “we want to make sure that folks utilize the curb space in what we consider to be the correct way.” That sounds awfully Big Brotherish for a program that’s actually giving more choice. Of course, Harvey isn’t entirely wrong; he was trying to explain that DDOT wants to reserve on-street spaces for shorter-term use. But it sounds punitive.

At the meeting, too, Harvey’s language unwittingly reinforced the negative perceptions of the parking pilot. In talking about the 95% occupancy, he said that it might be time to “jack up” the price. Harvey kept using that term, “jack up.” That carries an enormously negative connotation. When your corner bakery has to make a bagel a little pricier to account for higher wheat prices, they don’t put up a sign saying they’re “jacking up” the bagels.

In explaining why higher prices might be appropriate, Harvey cited “the literature” which suggests an 85% occupancy rate. However, he never explained to people why the literature recommends 85%. (Answer: 85% is about the rate where there’s a space on each block, so most of the time, you can park on the block you want.) 95% doesn’t mean much to people. But if you say that most of the time, there are no spaces at all on that block, that makes much more sense.

Harvey even said that he thought perhaps it wasn’t a good time to adjust the rates, because the Columbia Heights streetscape is interfering with businesses, and they can’t take any more. He probably meant that there’s already significant political controversy in Columbia Heights, and maybe it’s better to wait for a calmer time. But he didn’t talk about it that way. Instead, he talked about how we have to be careful not to hurt businesses. A properly implemented program won’t hurt businesses, it will help them. Plus, it’s already taken forever to collect data. If DDOT moves slowly and waits until all stars align to do what’s clearly the right policy, the pilot will expire before DC ever actually tries performance parking.

One attendee talked about how parking is a problem for the businesses. But when asked whether the bigger problem was too-expensive parking or not-available parking, he replied that availability was the main obstacle. A rate adjustment would fix the bigger problem, availability. It would allow a driver interested in stopping to buy food at one of the ethnic takeout establishments to do so, where today they cannot.

Part of the problem is that at the ballpark, the parking policy really is about discouraging driving. DC is being very up-front: we want people to take Metro. And they are. It’s working. Making it hard for baseball fans to park isn’t what’s lowering attendance at Nationals games. But that’s not performance parking at all, it’s just anti-parking. The way officials frame that program leaks over into programs like Columbia Heights.

When Michael or I talk about performance parking, we never talk about “jacking up” rates or “forcing” people into garages. We talk about making parking easier. Because that’s what it is. Parking is too hard in DC. Even the lede to the Fox 5 story says it. “It’s tough enough to find parking in the streets of DC.” But then, they add, “This may make it even tougher.” That’s a common reaction, but it’s wrong. Performance parking would make on-street parking change from “virtually impossible to find” to “conveniently available, for a reasonable price.” However, journalists and community members aren’t going to see performance parking this way unless DDOT frames it this way. And right now, with the “jack it up” and “what we consider to be the correct way” language from Harvey, that’s not going to happen, and performance parking isn’t going to succeed.