Posts about DC

DC making DC USA garage free

by David Alpert • February 8, 2010 5:38 pm

Tipster Thomas forwarded an email the Mayor's office sent around about the snow:

Photo by zontikgames.
DC USA parking garage will remain free for the next 48 hours: With street parking more scarce during this historic winter weather season, we will continue providing free parking in the over 2,000 space parking complex at the shopping center in Columbia Heights. The DC USA parking center is conveniently located a block from the Columbia Heights metro stop and can provide sheltered parking while ensuring that your vehicle is off of the streets so that we can quickly clear your street and return to normalcy as soon as possible.

The email also reminded residents that you have to clear your sidewalk and asks those who drive to please be careful not to park in ways that block snowplows from accessing streets.

3 comments — Share	— tags: DC, DC USA, free parking, snow

Fight for the fountain: Thousands battled it out in a huge snowball fight in Dupont Circle Saturday. M.V. Jantzen was over at the fight in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park. (Comment · Share)

Bag fee refined: New regulations clarify details of the bag fee. Businesses that sell a small amount of food will still have to charge 5 cents for all bags, but bags that package most things that need bags, like newspapers or dry cleaning, are exempt. (Post) (Comment · Share)

Vacant or blighted?: The DC Council is still wrestling with how to adjust its "vacant" and/or "blighted" property tax rates to promote using empty properties and punish those that let properties crumble without unfairly hitting property owners hurt by a bad economy. (The Other 35 Percent) (Comment · Share)

Those stylish reusable bags: Finally, a press article that isn't whining about the bag fee, but agrees that people really are using reusable bags: the Post's Home and Garden section has an article on the stylish reusable bags people are sporting at area grocers. (Post) (Comment · Share)

Big Chair big news: Area blogs have been talking about this for a while, but there's a new coffee shop on MLK Ave SE in historic downtown Anacostia. The coffee shop will seek to capitalize on the lunch rush hour and create a "third place" in an area with few food options. (Post, Cavan) (Comment · Share)

Parking

DC USA garage to offer daily and monthly parking

by David Alpert • February 3, 2010 1:42 pm

The DC USA garage, which is never even half full, may finally see some more use, but at the cost of increasing congestion in Columbia Heights: ODMPED has reached an agreement to make rent out 350 spaces for daily and monthly use in addition to the current hourly parking.

Photo (not DC USA) by skycaptaintwo.

The space will cost $6/day for parkers who arrive before 9 am and leave by 7 pm. Monthly spaces will cost $145/month. In addition, the hourly rates will increase, now costing $1.50 for each of the first two hours, then $1/hour for the next two, and jumping to $12 total for people who stay 4-12 hours.

As DCist notes, that would definitely bias the usage in favor of commuters and add to rush hour traffic. They presumably chose the "early bird" pricing structure to discourage shoppers from staying long periods of time, but will have the effect of forcing people to drive in during the morning rush and leave during the evening rush. Want to stay late until it's less crowded? Too bad.

The DC government pays for operating losses in the garage, but has to get agreement from Target and the mall developer to make any chances. Target had reportedly been resisting any other use of the space, especially a non-car use like storage or a bowling alley.

Operating the garage has been costing the DC government $2.1 million. While it's great DC was able to bring in these successful stores, it might not have been so smart to agree to pay costs for a garage while giving stores a complete veto over any changes to reduce massive losses.

A deal will be good for the DC budget by stemming the hemorrhaging of money from this overbuilt parking. Still, it seems that there has to be a way to structure a parking program that encourages off-peak driving more than peak driving.

46 comments — Share	— tags: DC, DC USA, parking

Transit

DDOT clarifies Circulator policy: Strollers are okay

by David Alpert • February 3, 2010 12:28 pm

DDOT has asked Circulator operator First Transit to change their stroller policy after reading about Ken Archer's experiences here.

Photo by jepoirrier.

Ken wrote that after allowing parents to bring unfolded strollers onto the bus when space permits, Circulator drivers suddenly started cracking down, citing a new policy. Circulator customer service confirmed it, but DDOT's John Lisle wrote that this wasn't DDOT's policy.

As Carol Buckley wrote in last week's Current (really large PDF), DDOT subsequently followed up with First Transit, which had indeed imposed the policy. DDOT asked First Transit to allow the strollers while they formulate a more detailed policy, which will probably resemble Thunder Bay, Ontario's: strollers can use the standing area as long as the bus isn't crowded and as long as no persons with disabilities, seniors, or other people with mobility impairments don't need the space.

Have you encountered a problematic government policy? Area government officials are reading your posts and comments.

6 comments — Share	— tags: Circulator, customer service, DC, DDOT

Transit

Everybody wants a Circulator

by David Alpert • February 2, 2010 4:29 pm

During the DC Council's debate over the bill to replace the Georgetown Blue Bus with a Circulator, Councilmembers started to chime in about wanting Circulator service in their own Wards.

Photo by PZAO.

Mike DeBonis, who was Tweeting the meeting, covered the saga in 140-character bits:

mikedebonis Everybody wants a goddamn Circulator for their ward. Mary Cheh wondering why Ward 3 can't have one.

mikedebonis Harry Thomas Jr. wants comprehensive plan to bring Circulator (aka 'new private limo service') across town. Especially Ward 5!

mikedebonis Yvette: 'I haven't seen more than five people on a Circulator bus.'

Others chimed in:

davestroup the only ward 3 circulator that might make sense would somehow hit glover park, cathedral, and connect to cleveland park metro.

sherrieindc CM Thomas refers to the Circulator as the 'private limousine' service for certain DC residents...what's wrong with WMATA-clean it up????

amorrissey @mikedebonis @davestroup while we're at it, can we get a Circulator route to the shore? i really hate driving there every summer.

IMGoph tell them to invest money in the streetcar system-the circulator is just a stalking horse for it.

RegBazile Transit svce based on whims of pols has no pax? Shocking!

IMGoph at least kathy henderson won't be able to accuse him of not trying to get for ward 5 what ward 6 has...

sherrieindc has a very good point. We have a comprehensive bus network, the Metrobuses. They provide transit to most neighborhoods in the region and virtually all in DC. If we need to improve transit in various wards of the city, we should improve those.

That said, Circulator buses do play a valuable role: they are more attractive to riders who aren't regular commuters. It's a simple system with a few lines on relatively simple routes, running easy to recognize vehicles that charge a fare that doesn't require change or a SmarTrip.

They're good for getting people to major nightlife destinations that aren't on Metro, like Georgetown and Adams Morgan, or getting people around areas with high rates of walking, like 7th Street across the Mall or around the Mall itself (if only the Park Service allowed that). It would be even more powerful if DC started promoting a combined map to residents and tourists.

It'd be great if Historic Anacostia, Minnesota-Benning, and Fort Totten were big tourist destinations one day, but that evolution should happen around Metro stations or the development that streetcar lines could bring, and is a ways off in the future.

There is a transit plan for all wards (mostly excepting Ward 3), and that's the streetcar plan. As IMGoph pointed out, the Council's eagerness for upgraded transit citywide should focus on the streetcars, not the Circulator.

More broadly, the fragmentation of our region's buses into numerous operators across jurisdictions brings problems. The buses aren't all on one map. The schedules aren't necessarily coordinated. Technology improvements like NextBus rolled out on Metrobus don't apply to the others. And sometimes, jurisdictions have cherry picked popular and potentially profitable bus routes and take them away from Metro.

On the other hand, various bus systems do create some opportunities for competition. It's similar to the way federalism gives states a chance to experiment and innovate in various areas of the law. ART can try out a different kind of service, or Ride On can try working with Google Transit, without the huge Metrobus system having to do it.

It's terrific that Councilmembers are so interested in improving transit service. If they want to move beyond mere posturing, they'll think about the best ways to actually improve their wards' transit, whether that's a red Circulator, a blue Metrobus Express, a streetcar, or something else.

28 comments — Share	— tags: Circulator, DC, DC Council, Harry Thomas Jr, Mary Cheh

Government

Who are the new DC residents?

by David Alpert • February 2, 2010 11:19 am

Around the New Year, bloggers and then news outlets discovered that new Census figures showed DC as the fifth fastest growing "state," with a population about to pass 600,000. What the Census figures don't tell us is, who are these new residents?

Photo by sean dreilinger.

Planning Director Harriet Tregoning has some hypotheses:

Tregoning said tax records will help clarify from which the states the newcomers are arriving. She said she thinks that many new arrivals are young and want to live near public transportation. ...
"If someone is wondering where to go after graduating college, or who's lost a job or just wants a change, there aren't many places that are adding jobs," she said.

Until we have the tax records, we can take an unscientific survey. Did you move to DC in the last year? If so, can you help illuminate DC's migration patterns?