Comments on Residents sound off about East Falls Church redevelopment - Greater Greater Washington

Comment by JP

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 02:46:52 EDT

With the Ballston metro commuter lot over I-66 now largely a permit lot for the Arlington Public Schools, and the loss of spaces at E Falls Church, fewer people who live beyond walking distance to the stations will have access to rapid transit, and that is unfortunate. Perhaps the North Arlington commuters that currently drive to the E Falls Church park and ride lot will either bike or take the ART 53 Bus, which runs every 30 min during rush hour? who knows.

Comment by Alan

Thu, 27 May 2010 16:53:48 EDT

I think the plan looks great. As someone looking to move into the area, I think this makes it much more attractive. Does anyone have an idea of how realistic this proposal is? Is it shelfware or will the community begin seeing changes in the next couple of years? Thanks in advance for any input.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Thu, 06 May 2010 12:14:19 EDT

@Charlie: For my estimate, I set land acquisition and taxes to zero. Even though Metro doesn't have to purchase the land, it certainly has an opportunity cost, so it shouldn't be zero, but I did anyway so you couldn't complain about that.

Regarding the 450 spaces comment. There are already 450 spaces on the EFC park and ride lot. If you replace them with a 900 space garage, you're only adding 450 spaces because you already had 450. If the garage costs $18,000 per gross parking space, it actually cost you $36,000 per net parking space, because you paid $16.2 million to get an additional 450 spaces.

So to summarize, you get 450 spaces for free because they already exist, but if you build a structure, you have to look at the cost per additional space, because that's what you would really be buying.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 06 May 2010 11:53:03 EDT

@Michael Perkins; not sure what you mean by "Also, you don't get to count the first 450 spaces because they were already there, the price is for additional spaces".

The spreadsheet is interesting. Like any model, there are flaws. Anything coming from BC is anti-car in my book. (joke). More seriously, in the cost estimate I see two factors that don't apply to WMATA here: land acquisition and taxes.

His estimate for "urban underground" parking is $25K a space. I don't see any research in his spreadsheet, but that is actually lower than your initial estimate. As I said, combining that with building residences/offices on top of an underground garage would lower the costs more.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Thu, 06 May 2010 09:34:12 EDT

@Charlie: I actually like the excel spreadsheet here:
http://www.vtpi.org/parking.xls

Which lets you plug in your assumptions and is based on extensive research by Mr. Todd Litman of VTPI. The research cites assumptions and sources, which I find preferable to the website you linked, which does not cite anything, so I don't know what it's based on. (ps, you need to have bigger spaces than 300 sqft to allow for ramps and access lanes. Try 400 square feet. Also, you don't get to count the first 450 spaces because they were already there, the price is for additional spaces)

Plugging in reasonable assumptions (and somewhat lower ones than previously cited) I get a monthly parking space cost including construction and operations/maintenance of about $10 per workday for an underground garage, or $8 per day for an above-ground structure (which would be unacceptable to the local community).

I think the biggest bang for the buck for getting people to the stations would be to improve local walking, then biking, then transit conditions. The improvements in walking and biking conditions are relatively cheap and require little ongoing operating funding.

It's too bad Metro had to cut the entire pedestrian/bike improvements project out of their capital budget. They won't even have money to repair or replace bike lockers or racks as they get damaged or corrode.

Comment by charlie

Thu, 06 May 2010 09:10:56 EDT

@Michael Perkins; don't be bitter, I love numbers too, it is just after working with them long enough I've come to understand that they aren't always reliable.

There is always some fat in a building contract. The question is whether that is fat a private company can cut out (wages, questionable contracts, etc) or fat that is build in by design (building requirements, safety and health regulations).

http://www.buildingjournal.com/commercial-estimating.html

I am getting estimates of about 20-60 dollars a square foot, at 300 square feet a spot that is 18K for the spot. I can't say how much extra room you need, and I assume these estimates are for a non-underground lot, but that still comes out near the low end of your numbers.

Combine those costs with another project and you might have yourself a viable project.

The point about should WMATA focus on commuters who don't have additional costs (come in by foot) rather than ones you have to spend money for parking, biking spots, or buses is a good one. I tend to agree, just because the orange line is so crowded. But look to the future. You are going to have a whole new revenue stream come online in the SIlver line, where people from Falls Church are going to start commuting to Reston or Tysons by metro. You want to capture them as well, and those trains will be not crowded for a long time,

Comment by Matt Glazewski

Thu, 06 May 2010 08:34:07 EDT

As an E Falls Churchian like Mr. Perkins, I welcome the change. The area is a bit of a potpourri of nice new development and old, unsightly structures like "Cars USA" which looks like your neighborhood chop shop, constantly taking parallel parking spots on available streets for their lot storage. Blow up the metro lot, make EFC as great as the rest of the smart growth Arlington has shown it is so great at - I say.

Comment by xtr657

Thu, 06 May 2010 07:53:18 EDT

Ooohhh more "open space" in the mix for the existing parking lot. How exciting! Every block in Arlington has been developed with "open space" because the site plan commissioners like to see that in the plans and because that is the only way to build a stand out building (ie, with some height) without going above the maximum density. Most of it is a complete waste, with huge opens spaces in Ballston completely empty while the adjacent sidewalks are bristling with activity. Looks nice on paper, but one big park is a hell of a lot better than tiny crappy wastes of space on each block.

If Metro can't afford to make money off a parking lot and they want to develop the space, at least let the developer build parking into the development and let them charge what they want to recoup the costs. I know the current urban development trend is basically summed up by anti-vehicle attitudes and forcing people to accept transit as the future, and while that would be great if we were more like Europe or New York, it isn't going to work overnight in an area like ours where the vast majority of people still have to drive to transit. Keep taking away parking spaces and I will stop including transit in my trip all together. I'll just drive and park in the city. And if the city officials keep making that harder, well, I don't really need to go there in the first place.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Wed, 05 May 2010 20:07:44 EDT

Yea it's about the numbers. Numbers are reality. Those numbers aren't WMATA specific, they're in line with structured parking costs all over.

But I know how this goes, I use numbers and data, and you state that you doubt the numbers.

Comment by charlie

Wed, 05 May 2010 18:07:41 EDT

@Michael Perkins; as always with the numbers.

Then I suggest WMATA start either:

1) learn to build garages for a lower cost or
2) sell the garage rights to a private company who can do that.

Comment by jnb

Wed, 05 May 2010 17:54:19 EDT

@ Michael Perkins

Exactly right.

There is a question "out there" that needs to be addressed. It is: "Does Metro care how a rider gets to its system? If Metro replaces 450 expensive-to-serve park and riders with 450 less expensive-to-serve patrons, shouldn't Metro prioritize the transit patrons who are less expensive to serve? Or, put another way, cost less to get to transit?

Another issue is that parking lots cause peak demand problems. Everyone races to get there early and so a lot of people fill a big lot quickly...then demand slacks off. This is especially true for big end of the line lots, but affects smaller stations, too. With TOD, you'd have less pronounced peaking and more options about when to access the system.

Comment by Gavin

Wed, 05 May 2010 17:27:17 EDT

Presumably less parking will be needed after the Silver Line starts running. I would guess a sizable portion of EFC park & ride commuters live in Fairfax and may switch to a Silver Line station when it's available.

Comment by Michael Perkins

Wed, 05 May 2010 15:10:44 EDT

@charlie, others.

additional parking spaces cost about $30-50,000 each, if you have to build underground or above ground. So to make it worth your while (5% return on investment), you have to make at least $1500 to 2500 a year, plus operating costs, which is typically about half of amortized capital costs, give or take. So you're looking at a parking space that costs about $2000 to $4000 per year. You sell that space about 90% of the weekdays, with the weekends getting little revenue if not free. So that's about 250 transactions per year. So you have to sell the space for around $8 a day to break even. Yes, you get additional revenue for people riding Metrorail, but also you have to provide additonal service to meet those extra customers.

You've also burned about $10M of scarce capital funds building a garage to serve about 450 people.

Instead, build a building that houses 450 people, and not only do you get additional riders and funds for the system, but you get tax revenue from a piece of land that has up until now not been contributing to the county taxes. 450 people live in approximately 450,000 square feet of space, that has a value of about $200 per square foot, so that building's worth about $90M, or about $900,000 per year in county property tax, not to mention sales, income and personal property taxes too.

Comment by MLD

Wed, 05 May 2010 15:03:26 EDT

@charlie

Building more and bigger garages at suburban stations is not a "no-brainer," because with the $5 a day parking charge Metro can't actually recuperate the cost of building the garages.

Comment by charlie

Wed, 05 May 2010 12:47:22 EDT

I understand metro has limits to their capital budgets, but building bigger garages at the suburban stations seems like a no-brainer to me. Good revenue from both the parking and associated rides. Instead they want to raise the parking rates and drive away customers..

Understandably, there are limits to the amount of traffic the local roads could allow...

Also, having some sort of bike station would be amazing, given the location. Even selling cold drinks to people coming in on the W&OD.

Comment by ckstevenson

Wed, 05 May 2010 12:41:47 EDT

@Charlie, the parking spots are indeed heavily used. To the point of almost being laughably short on spaces for regular day-to-day commuting.

If an option would be to eliminate half of the spots so they could put in a parking garage, I'd be in favor of that. As-is I have to drive to WFC to take the metro in to DC when I go there (and I drop my wife off at WFC most days because she can't drive to EFC to get a spot).

Comment by charlie

Wed, 05 May 2010 12:23:58 EDT

I'm not a resident.

However, I was also curious why the parking space for the station was being cut down so much. Are they used? Why couldn't you build underground garages? Blindly cutting them out may not be a good idea.

Westermoreland has some of the nastiest speed bumps in the area.