Posts about DMV

Parking

Neighborhood-based prices could fix DC's residential parking

by Adam Lewis and Mitch Wander   •   September 8, 2011 3:43 pm

The District's one-size-fits-all approach to residential parking results in inefficient allocation of a scarce resource. Tailoring prices by neighborhood for the city's residential parking permit (RPP) program could make the system more responsive to the unique needs of individual communities.

When DC introduced its RPP system in the 1970s, it was designed to ensure that residents had access to street parking in their neighborhoods. Residents could petition the city to enforce 2-hour only parking on their block with an exemption for vehicles issued a zone permit. The parking zones coincide with the boundaries set for each of the city's eight wards.

For more than 30 years, this parking permit regime has worked well to prevent commuters from parking on residential streets. However, the system was never designed to allocate scarce street spaces efficiently among neighborhood residents.

Public Spaces

Breakfast links: The morning after (the stimulus vote)

by David Alpert   •   January 29, 2009 9:15 am

Counting our chickens: State and local officials have started discussing how to spend the stimulus money. Maryland's John Porcari says they'll prioritize repairs over new projects, which is the right choice; VDOT head Pierce Homer wants to pay for repairs and some of the delayed projects, meaning potentially more freeway widenings or new freeways. Most likely, according to COG transportation planner Ronald Kirby, the Purple Line won't get any of this money. Update: Or maybe it will. Nobody really knows yet.

Screw nature: $200 million to repair the Mall's grass and keep the Jefferson Memorial from sinking underwater got cut from the stimulus. MoCo is cutting port-a-potties from Rock Creek Park in winter. And auto manufacturers have confirmed they plan to use public bailout money to keep suing the public for imposing higher clean air standards (via Ryan Avent).

Wires have their high points: That Bombardier wireless streetcar technology looks pretty cool but, writes Manifest Density, it'll probably be quite energy inefficient, likely wasting 20% of the power it consumes.

Thanks for reading, Examiner: It looks like the Examiner noticed GGW's weekend links about the emergency DMV rule for federal judges. Reporter Bill Myers called the DMV, who said "the emergency order sprang from 'a situation' recently," but wouldn't elaborate.

Cut transit and people stop riding transit: Maryland Politics Watch's Marc Korman reluctantly stopped riding MARC after recent service cuts (and falling gas prices). No word yet on whether he's changing his name to I-95 Korman.

Lose the LOS: Streetsblog SF explains how Level Of Service (LOS) warps traffic engineers' thinking and blocked important improvements in San Francisco. city and state planners are trying to dethrone LOS as the primary driver of traffic decisions.

Midwest vs. DC smackdown: President Obama mocks the Washington region for its inability to handle some snow; City Desk's Andrew Beaujon says he'll take this over Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan anytime.

Stop hatin' on K Street: Yglesias points out, "'K Street' is a synedoche for the influence peddling business, but it's also an actual street," which is definitely not full of lobbyists over in the Mount Vernon Triangle. "You wouldn't want to actually crack down on K Street, leaving out all the bad people on other streets but hitting the new Busboys & Poets coffee shop."

And: A new Colesville Wendy's will site the building close to the sidewalk, but still will face a mostly blank wall to the street; Imagine, DC almost loses his wheels after meeting GGW contributors.

Links

Weekend reading II: The federal environment

by David Alpert   •   January 24, 2009 11:23 am

Paper or plastic? How about neither? Marc Fisher delves into the familiar question. He determines that the only eco-friendly option for your shopping bags is to "do what our counterparts do in many other countries of the world—bring [your] own dang bag to the store."

Fixing the Mall: Holding 1.8 million people drew national attention to our downtrodden National Mall. The Post says we need to do better. The National Park Service wants to keep running things, while the National Coalition to Save Our Mall thinks we need an independent commission. Richard Layman suggests a "National Heritage Area", which NPS could co-manage in a public-private partnership similar to NYC's Bryant or Central Parks and without some of their stifling restrictions.

Federal judges need their out-of-state licenses? An emergency rulemaking in this week's DC Register "will exempt members of the Judicial Branch of the Federal government and their spouses from the requirement of surrendering out-of-state operator's permits when registering a motor vehicle." It doesn't explain why the judicial branch and their spouses, and nobody else, need an exemption from this particular rule, and why it's an emergency. Anyone know?

Parking

You just got a ticket

by David Alpert   •   October 27, 2008 2:16 pm

Last week, I helped organize a focus group of young professionals in Dupont Circle talking about their impressions of the neighborhood, area businesses, city government, the ANC, etc.

When asked about interactions with local government, two people immediately mentioned parking enforcement woes. One person had a fairly typical experience: he parked on the street, came back almost a week later in time for the next street cleaning, and discovered his car gone. In the interim, someone had put up Emergency No Parking signs, then towed the car.

Someone else had parked a car on the street, but also found it missing one day. DPW had no record of towing this car, so she filed a police report for a stolen vehicle. Months later, she found out from the DMV that her car had been actually towed around the corner to a nearby major street, where it had been sitting for months. That street had a rush hour parking restriction, so during those months it had been blocking a lane every single day. It was never towed from there, but had accumulated hundreds of dollars in unpaid tickets.

Let's solve this problem with technology. The DMV already collects email addresses. I suggest they set, or DPW, up a simple system to email people when they get a ticket or are towed. People could go online to opt in, or we could simply do it automatically. Then, if someone's car gets a ticket for violating an Emergency No Parking zone and is scheduled to be towed, the owner might find out in time to move the car. If a car gets courtesy-towed around the corner, they will find out; and if, as in the above case, DPW manages not to record it properly, they'll at least receive a notification when the car is first ticketed.

Our government's needn't restrict its interaction with parked cars to putting notices on the windshield and occasionaly moving them. We have easy ways to reach many citizens electronically. Let's use them.

Update: Mention parking enforcement and everyone's stories come up. Here's Ryan's.