Reason #432 not to go to DC.

by Oliver on Apr 12, 2010 11:34 am • link • report

I agree. For places that have multispace meters, DDOT should be able to get some gross occupancy data fairly easily and avoid raising rates where the revenues are very low.

This proposal is too heavy-handed and should take into account the varied demand we're seeing.

by Michael Perkins on Apr 12, 2010 12:03 pm • link • report

One correction:

The parking provisions of the BSA are actually amending the DC municipal regulations overseen by DDOT. I believe, but am not sure, that DDOT can change the rates by rulemaking, although I think they need Council approval of the regulations increasing parking fees.

by Fritz on Apr 12, 2010 12:05 pm • link • report

Too many quarters. You need advanced parking meters in place first. Ugh. Bad idea.

by NikolasM on Apr 12, 2010 12:58 pm • link • report

Right on the money, David.

Independent retailers in areas like 14th Street are having a tough go of trying to stay in business without the DC government making it even more difficult to park there.

by Mike S. on Apr 12, 2010 1:06 pm • link • report

One often overlooked segment are the restaurant workers ... the waiters and waitresses, bus personnel, cooks, etc. I know when the first change went into affect some months back, I had a waitress and manager of one restaurant on 17th Street explaining that they were now having to contend with about $200 a month in parking tickets because there was no longer a means for them to park legally for over 2 hrs on the street. (I'm guessing they used to time their arrivals for when the meter charges stopped ... 6:30? ... which would give them a parking space for the night.) I DID explain that if they were willing to pay that much in tickets, why not just rent a space in the neighborhood for about that amount. I got a mumbled answer back and suddenly realized that while they were paying that much in tickets, they couldn't really afford to pay that much (in tickets or in parking fees) for a long term basis. These guys don't make that much that $200 is easy to part with. I'd suspect that for some of these waiters we're probably talking about their having to part with ALL of their disposable income if they had to pay this. I know people are thinking "mass transit", but as the waitress pointed out to me, she leaves late at night ... sometimes after the last metro ... and even if before the last metro late enough that she doesn't want to be walking around at night. And the manager explained that he lives in Stratford (or some such place) and that if he were to take mass transit he'd never make it as he already has a full time day job in addition to this full time night job. I.e., we're squeezing out the hardworking, underpaid, service sector workers with this parking policy. Bethesda has built numerous parking garages in its downtown and they're free in the evening. During the day the office workers pay to park there and fund the garage. At night the restaurant workers get a place to park and people who might otherwise come to eat in DC restaurants, will instead be lured to Bethesda' restaurants. It sounds like they have a winning idea going ... While we're just adding to the reasons why many folks and businesses want nothing to do with DC.

by Lance on Apr 12, 2010 1:27 pm • link • report

This is also a big boon to private garage owners and an incentive to build *more* off street parking.

In fact, if garages jack up their rates, the rational driver might just park on the street and forgo feeding the meter (or moving the car) at all. Just pay the parking ticket.

by Ward 1 Guy on Apr 12, 2010 1:39 pm • link • report

I just snarfed my milk while reading this.

GGW NOT supporting more fees?

It my perfect, unicorn-laden world GGW might have a bit more sympathy for people who actually do need to count coins to make it through every month. But I am glad they recognize that fees have consequences and we're starting to see large drop offs in demand on street parking.

Increasing taxes for underground parking spaces downtown seems to me a better revenue generator -- less elastic pricing and fewer other problems.

Just to tick off Michael Perkins, I think his performance parking metrics don't necessarily work on a block-by-block (or multispce by multispace) basis. I do know people who will circle a block to park right in front of store, instead of a bit further down the block. Would the multispace meter data tell you that? NO.

I eagerly await Mr. Alpert's report on repurposing the bag fees, and ask him to climb the mountain and start yelling "No" to a lot of these hidden taxes.

by charlie on Apr 12, 2010 1:44 pm • link • report

I already reported on repurposing the bag fees. I'll be covering more of the proposed fees/taxes later this week, but generally I don't like the approach of using fees as revenue raisers. Fees can create incentives for desired outcomes, like ensuring parking isn't impossible to find or encouraging reusable bag usage, but aren't the appropriate tool to just get money. That's what taxes are for, or else don't spend the money.

by David Alpert on Apr 12, 2010 1:49 pm • link • report

Solution: stop buying cars. Take mass transit.

by aaa on Apr 12, 2010 1:50 pm • link • report

The new rates seem pretty reasonable to me, as long as there's a way to pay other than quarters. Your disagreement seems to be based on a few anecdotes. That's fine, since the data apparently doesn't exist, but having parking spaces "rarely or never filled" is the whole point of performance parking. If the were usually or always full, you would be (rightly IMO) calling for them to raise prices, right?

by jcm on Apr 12, 2010 2:07 pm • link • report

I'll agree w/ NikolasM. They really need to have upgraded meters in place prior to hiking the fees this much. The usual failure of most meters to periodically not register coins starts to have a large impact. Before, you would lose a quarter every once in a while, now I find myself grabbing an extra $.50/$1.00 to account for skipped change.

From a business perspective, the $3/hr + loss at places w/o credit card meters starts to drive off customers for want of a few (dozen) quarters.

How much change do you normally have in your car? (self-righteous bikers need not respond)

by too much change on Apr 12, 2010 2:09 pm • link • report

@Lance

I understand your point. However, your argument stresses why we need better, more accessible mass transit in addition to better parking policies. In many areas, such as the 17th Street corridor you mentioned, I'm hard-pressed to think of a spot where more parking could even be constructed. In addition, we have seen what happens when too much parking is constructed at massive public expense that is never utilized (think DC USA in Columbia Heights).

by Adam L on Apr 12, 2010 2:12 pm • link • report

I don't buy the "what about the poor restaurant workers" sob story. Is it so hard to park a few blocks away at an unmetered space?

If the distance gets to be too substantial for walking (doubtful), you could just buy a cheap bike for $20 on craigslist to shuttle back and forth.

That said, DDOT really should only raise rates in areas with multispace meters already in place. For $3/hr, having to pay in quarters is ridiculous. It's inconvenient enough in the spaces that are $2/hr.

by Phil on Apr 12, 2010 2:45 pm • link • report

@Lance - Bethesda charges for parking on weeknights in both public garages and on-street. Saturday night, it charges for parking on street.

by Ben Ross on Apr 12, 2010 2:45 pm • link • report

From @charlie: Just to tick off Michael Perkins, I think his performance parking metrics don't necessarily work on a block-by-block (or multispce by multispace) basis. I do know people who will circle a block to park right in front of store, instead of a bit further down the block. Would the multispace meter data tell you that? NO.

In fact the data can and does tell me that. I obtained data from different meters in the ballpark district and ran the numbers through a python visualization script I wrote. I could tell the difference between blocks that never fill up and ones that are normally packed. This was confirmed when DC published their performance parking occupancy statistics in their report. While it's not possible to have the level of accuracy needed to adjust meter rates directly, it's enough to tell you where you should perform an in-person count to see whether the rates are too low.

The data will show that if people are circling the block to park on a particular block, that block will have abnormally high occupancy and should therefore have higher rates.

by Michael Perkins on Apr 12, 2010 3:04 pm • link • report

You don't have to have 24 quarters to buy two hours, you can use 120 nickels.

by Herschel on Apr 12, 2010 3:21 pm • link • report

@Mperkins; interesting. Ball park district might be a bit different from other parking patterns but using multispace as the first cut (and then doing detailed studies on each bloc identified) is a good approach to understanding demand.

But of course, as we are seeing, street parking isn't about demand. It is about revenue. The old DC dynamic of "we're not not a state, we can't tax non-residents, let's hit them with fines" is alive and well.

@DA; you know I was jesting, no? Your work on the bag tax was much admired here in unicorn land. I am looking forward to your continued reporting on what happens with the money, and how the anacostia suddenly gets cleaned up....

Can I use pennies in the multispace meters?

by charlie on Apr 12, 2010 3:31 pm • link • report

I am amazed at the indifference of some of the folks on this blog to the realities of restaurant workers and others who work the late shift.

Amazingly, these workers don't have trust funds and often have little or no disposable income. Many work two jobs, or more, because they have to in order to survive on minimum wage. They don't have an extra hour to wait for a bus and transfer...that would come out of their sleep time.

Some, like Adrian Alston (who worked at Annie's) or several young hispanic men in Columbia Heights, end up robbed and killed late at night on their way home from work. Those who work for tips are easy prey in the areas surrounding 14th Street.

These people need to work to survive, they work nights, and Metro cannot provide the service they need. Dismissing the realities of their lives as "sob stories" is arrogant, classist, and perhaps racist. It's also sickening.

by Mike S. on Apr 12, 2010 3:51 pm • link • report

Herschel: hehe, 120 nickels @ 5 grams/coin = 1.3lbs of metal

by too much change on Apr 12, 2010 4:01 pm • link • report

@charlie: I took a look at the ballpark data compared to other data I had available. In other areas I was not able to tell a difference between blocks because they filled up with cars early in the day and stayed full until the meters shut off at 6pm. The data was from before the meter hours were extended, and unfortunately if the meters aren't collecting any money they're also not collecting any data.

This shows the limitations of using the multispace meters alone for figuring out demand.
You can't tell if the meters stop at 6pm and then the demand falls off a cliff, or the demand is high until 10pm.
You can't tell whether the block is full and there's always people circling for a space, or whether it's full and an empty space tends to linger a little.
You can't tell whether there are a lot of people cheating by not purchasing meter time.
You can't tell whether people buy two hours and then stay three.

by Michael Perkins on Apr 12, 2010 4:06 pm • link • report

@lance: Is there a need for a two-hour time limit? They keep getting parking tickets because of the time limit, but what if the time limit were gone?

Balancing act is that the market-clearing parking price with no time limit would likely be higher than with a two-hour limit. I don't know what that would be.

Is the problem that they're now getting tickets, or that they're now getting charged for something valuable that they used to be able to get for free?

by Michael Perkins on Apr 12, 2010 4:14 pm • link • report

@Mike S.

Surely you're not blaming lack of parking on the presence of violent crime? That is a stretch, to be sure.

I don't understand how lobbying our representatives for better and more frequent mass transit is in any way ignoring the needs of people who work late-night jobs. In addition, places like Columbia Heights do have plentiful, cheap parking, for example, in the DC USA garage. Where would you propose to put a parking garage on 17th Street or other historic areas in the city? Simply list the addresses of the buildings (and jobs) you would bulldoze in order to put up a parking lot. The "just build more parking" mantra isn't as quick and simple as some may believe. And watch when you throw out the "racist" label; such language is inflammatory and does absolutely nothing to further the discussion.

by Adam L on Apr 12, 2010 4:23 pm • link • report

I've never heard a good reason DC doesn't have 24-hour transit, for late-shift workers and others. That would remove the need for many of these workers, if they live in the city, to own a car. I visited Minneapolis recently, and their central, highest-ridership bus lines run all night. There's only one bus per hour between 2 and 5, but it's SOMETHING, and they're timed to allow transfers. If Minneapolis, a much smaller city not renowned for its transit, can do it, why can't we?

by Scott F on Apr 12, 2010 4:42 pm • link • report

I sympathize with underpaid service workers, but they are still not entitled to free curbside parking at their place of employment. Nobody is saying that these people can't come park in the city at night; they just need to do it on a non-metered street that might be a short distance away from their place of work. Nothing unreasonable about that.

by Phil on Apr 12, 2010 4:45 pm • link • report

Also, the most-traveled bus lines in the District do have once per hour overnight service. Many others have relatively small gaps in service (90 minutes or so.)

by Phil on Apr 12, 2010 4:48 pm • link • report

"oh no the quarters".

I parked in San Francisco last month, the meter cost $3.50 an hour. It did not take credit cards and did not appear to take dollar coins (it explicitly said no nickels or dimes but did not mentioned dollar coins). It wasnt a problem because anyone who expects to use street parking should get into the habit of procuring rolls of quarters from the bank. Whats the hassle of having a roll sitting in your car? It's not like you're carrying it around.

by J on Apr 12, 2010 4:52 pm • link • report

@ Michael P. "Is the problem that they're now getting tickets, or that they're now getting charged for something valuable that they used to be able to get for free?"

I understand what you're getting at. In the long term the restaurant owners will have to pay these workers more (and raise the price of meals accordingly) in order to attract wait staff since the cost of working in the city just got that much more expensive. (And this is a cost the worker wouldn't be paying if they did their job in the burbs where parking is cheap and plentiful.) In the short term though the workers suffer AND you have to wonder why when there are now so many empty metered spaces in the evenings. I guess I concur with David's assessment that we've overpriced. (Vis-a-vis the shortterm). Long term we need to address by providing more mass transit AND more parking. (And I don't see why we can't create vast underground parking garages as have been built in European cities where parking shortages would be even more acute than they are here due to the narrower streets.)

by Lance on Apr 12, 2010 6:54 pm • link • report

And nobody mentions the evils of valet parking. I'm sure people have opinions, but from what i've seen a large percentage of valet drivers park those cars on the road -- often illegally - and don't tell owners about the tickets. cracking down on those vendors will also free up street parking...

by charlie on Apr 12, 2010 7:48 pm • link • report

Remember the good old days when the cab drivers brought cash flow into the District?

by ****** on Apr 12, 2010 9:14 pm • link • report

"Remember the good old days when the cab drivers brought cash flow into the District?"

Huh?

by Lance on Apr 12, 2010 10:00 pm • link • report

One other thing to consider when raising parking rates and increasing enforcement hours is that now people who would park at meters now park in the neighborhood streets where there are no meters. Since the meter times were extended, the residential streets around U Street fill up with non-residential cars by 7 pm. Now valets are parking cars 3 to 4 blocks off of U Street. Before parking regulations are changed, the government should try to predict these unintended effects on the residents who live in the neighborhoods.

by Sharon on Apr 12, 2010 11:55 pm • link • report