Posts about Free Parking

While demanding unlimited free parking isn't really fair, the Logan Circle churches have some reasonable gripes. A few months ago, Councilmember Jack Evans suggested to the Logan Circle ANC that they try this parking change; the ANC approved the plan and DDOT put it into place. The churches, evidently, weren't part of that discussion.

This is a simple matter of allocating a scarce resource. Before, the policy on Sundays was to allocate the spaces to whomever showed up first or circled around long enough to find a space. Now, it privileges residents at the expense of churchgoers or shoppers or others. Maybe that's a better policy, maybe not, but we all need to acknowledge that it's a tradeoff; when one group gets more privileges, another loses them.

Pricing has to be part of the equation

One participant, Emily from Adams Morgan, pointed out that the current political system favors residents, though not for any sound policy reason. She was one of the handful of people who pushed for a market-based pricing approach. There's still a way to go to sell this to the church folks, however; many were grumbling and shaking her heads when Emily, or anyone else, suggested that a solution to church parking is to stop having it all be free.

But that's ultimately what we have to do. Richard Layman pointed the finger for parking problems at the way most District parking policies assume parking should be free. Thus, the argument always revolves around whether to give one group free parking or another, rather than to use tools like pricing to manage demand.

He took aim at the sentiment that because people pay for RPP stickers, they have already paid their share. "You think you're paying for parking, but you're not paying squat," he said. Angelo Rao, DDOT's parking manager, also suggested RPP rates are too low, noting that the current sticker costs only 9.6¢ per day.

Several people, including outgoing southern Woodley Park ANC commissioner Anne-Marie Bairstow, new northern Woodley Park ANC commissioner Gwendolyn Bole, and Friendship Heights ANC commissioner Tom Quinn, all asked for smaller RPP zones.

Bairstow said the current visitor pass program, which automatically mailed out passes to every household, is flawed; she has neighbors who have driveways and garages and still got the passes, so they just gave them to friends from outside Ward 3 or even outside the District, who then use Woodley Park as a park-and-ride.

What's the answer for churches?

Smaller zones and higher RPP prices are policies that should clearly be part of any solution; the only obstacle is politics. The church issue is trickier. I've been pushing for a system where residents buy annual passes, as they do today but at a higher rate, for their immediate areas, and anyone else can buy daily passes, maybe at varying rates based on public policy.

Instead of the current visitor placards, give each resident a "booklet" of free day passes to use for contractors, nannies, dinner parties, or whatever else, and let them purchase more booklets if needed. For a church that really contributes meaningfully to its community (many do, some don't), we could give the church even more booklets, enough to provide for a large proportion of their parking need, but perhaps not all.

There needs to be some incentive for the churches and neighborhoods to work together in a partnership. Churchgoers can reduce their parking load to some extent, such as by organizing carpools. In some neighborhoods, there are empty office garages; if enough people were willing to pay to park in them, they could open on Sundays. But the church community has to be willing to figure out how to accommodate some of their demand in other ways.

The booklets could form an incentive to do this, if DDOT could manage the total numbers of booklets and passes it gives out so that the total demand doesn't vastly exceed supply. Or, economists might say, just give the church money and let them buy however many booklets they need, though that could be legally tricky.

The summit did bring this fundamental tension into clear relief. Lots of people want the spaces. There aren't enough. Someone has to divvy them up in some way. A program of letting anyone park for free doesn't work, and the complex patchwork of restrictions and limits that DDOT has been moving toward doesn't really work either.

OP originally proposed setting parking maximums along with eliminating many minimums in the zoning update, but has now shelved the idea. OP still argues maximums have merit, but says that it's too difficult to set the right numbers without more work, which it still might undertake after the current zoning update is complete.

Setting maximums right is not simple. If proposed maximums are too low, developer pushback may jeopardize their survival. If they're too high, the standards are essentially useless, and developers will continue to build all the parking that they want regardless of whether the District's roads can handle the traffic resulting from this "fertility drug."

Minimum parking requirements distort the marketplace. Nixing them would remove this distortion, but other market distortions and subsidies remain. For example, parking is a tax-exempt fringe benefit the government allows—and even encourages—employers to provide. If rules required users to pay for their own parking without passing its cost off to others, developers would have a strong incentive to "right size" parking instead of oversupply it.

OP has taken the first key step in discouraging parking oversupply by forbidding developers in Planned Unit Development (PUD) projects from building excess parking and then just leasing it to outside parties. An additional, even more effective strategy would be to forbid bundling parking costs with unrelated charges, such as including parking in the cost of a housing unit or an office lease. In those cases, the parking costs are masked from the user, or paid for entirely by someone other than the one making the choice to drive and park. When users pay directly for parking, they demand significantly less of it.

Legislation would ideally apply these policy changes to all parking throughout the District. However, the politics may be more manageable to start with the zoning code rewrite, whose rules will only apply to new development. There is also a good policy reason to take this approach. Parking is often oversupplied because there are very few limitations on its use. By constraining the use of new parking spaces, developers would build fewer of them.

How could this work? Rules could require unbundling parking. The details would vary between office, retail, or housing use. All parkers would pay directly for parking, or get money back for not parking, but the nature of the charges would differ by building type.

• In multi-unit housing structures, except where parking is physically connected to only one unit, the developer would make parking available at market rate separate from the cost of the housing.
  
• For office buildings, employers could provide a parking benefit, but then must also give employees the option to instead receive a transportation allowance (or "cash-out") of equivalent value. This could take the form of tax-free transit, vanpool, or bicycling benefits, for employees whose commutes make them legally eligible for such benefits, plus taxable cash. The total would equal or exceed the market value of the parking.
  
• In buildings with retail tenants and parking, tenants would have to adopt and enforce a policy to charge market rates for parking for their customers. Retailers could give customers small discounts from market parking rates, but not more than 25% of the hourly market value of the parking.

A building's certificate of occupancy would require the owner to adhere to the standards (which would also need to be publicly displayed), and the Zoning Administrator could strip the certificate for noncompliance.

There is precedent for regulating on-site transportation accommodations through zoning: DC enforces bicycle parking standards this way. By eliminating the benefits to developers of oversupplying parking, developers would become much more judicious about building in parking that may not be used and whose costs would only drag down the project's bottom line.

Though closing the Kids' Farm would save the zoo $250,000 per year, the zoo would also lose the food, gift and parking revenue from families that have lost their favorite exhibit. When promoting the zoo as a venue for corporate and family events, the zoo touts the Picnic Pavilion's proximity to the Kids' Farm and even shows a farm animal photo. Clearly the Kids' Farm is a major attraction and revenue generator for the zoo.

Here is how the parking lot could save the Kids' Farm.

Although many visitors receive free parking as Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) members, parking is big business for the zoo. FONZ, which manages zoo parking and concessions, collected nearly $2.6 million in parking revenue according to its 2008 tax filing. Assuming a typical daily cost of $16, over 161,000 drivers paid to park at the zoo that year.

Payments for zoo parking produce more revenue than FONZ memberships, member classes, and group tours combined. Proper management of this revenue stream enables FONZ to support its own operations and its annual cash grant of over $1.7 million to the National Zoo.

The National Zoo Deputy Director, recognizing how the zoo relies on FONZ, asked the Smithsonian's Inspector General to evaluate FONZ's revenue operations "to determine whether FONZ is managing the Zoo's revenue operations in the most efficient and profitable manner."

In August 2007, the IG made 16 recommendations "to strengthen FONZ's revenue operations" and restricting the free parking benefit was one of them.

OIG identified groups that received free parking: zoo employees; FONZ employees, members and volunteers; vendors; and special event guests. The report found that "up to 30 percent of the vehicles parked in the Zoo lots [900 spaces] did not pay parking fees," and that "free employee parking at the Zoo should be restricted."

Currently, free parking is the first item listed under Benefits of Volunteering with FONZ. Unfortunately, there are no programs like transit benefits or carpools listed to help minimize volunteer parking during peak periods when visitors may abandon their trips due to full parking lots.

The OIG reviewed the FONZ benefits by noting, "In comparison to its peers, about 40,000 FONZ members enjoy the lowest annual household membership dues, do not pay admission, and receive unlimited free parking."

As a proud FONZ member, I currently enjoy FONZ benefits including free parking and animal crackers for the kids.

OIG suggested some minor modification to the free parking benefits during peak periods:

Offering unlimited free parking during the off-peak months and limiting free parking to perhaps one or two visits during peak months (with reduced rate parking for additional visits) would be a good way to provide a valued member benefit while also increasing parking revenues.

These suggestions would retain nearly all of the FONZ member benefits by only adjusting parking benefits during peak periods. Lowering the likelihood of full parking lots during peak periods benefits all zoogoers. Nobody likes to skip a zoo trip because there was nowhere to park.

Since the 2007 report, maximum parking rates have increased to $20 per day. Signs at the zoo indicate that member free parking is now limited to three hours, yet the member page still promotes all-day free parking.

The National Zoo Facilities Master Plan (2008) reiterates the need to limit employee parking. It recommends that the zoo explore "satellite/partnership" locations for employee parking. This would free spaces for visitors, many of whom pay for parking, thereby increasing parking revenue.

Saving the Kids' Farm is not impossible. In fact, there's already a Facebook Group advocating on its behalf. The zoo states that it "would need to find a generous sponsor who could provide a revenue stream of approximately $250,000 per year."

With much of the parking located near the Kids' Farm, the zoo could even legitimately add signs noting that the parking changes saved the Kids' Farm.

Full parking lots disappoint visitors. A closed Kids' Farm will disappoint visitors. The National Zoo can solve both of these problems by promptly acting on its own parking observations. There is no need to send our cows, pigs, goats and donkeys out to pasture for the sake of free parking.

It's important to note that parking is not necessarily the main or only reason that people become a FONZ. Some donors join the zoo at the household or individual member level (or higher) simply because they want to support the National Zoo. Some members like the reciprocal discounted or free admission at over 100 other zoos and aquariums.

The discounts on food and souvenirs are nice. And there's the not-so-widely-publicized free bag of animal crackers for members' children at the customer service/stroller rental kiosks. All of these benefits, a cool magazine and supporting the zoo accrue to members whether someone uses the zoo parking lots or not.

Increasing visitor traffic arriving by means other than car would help the zoo, even beyond the increase in people able to enjoy and appreciate the animals. More foot traffic at the exhibits would drive additional concession revenue. Heavy vehicle congestion on busy days often causes the zoo to use its finite police force to direct traffic. Full parking lots lead to long waits in idling cars, unsatisfied visitors who decide to leave rather than wait and increased attempts to park on nearby neighborhood streets.

A FONZ member benefits program for non-drivers would need to be compelling for visitors and easy for the zoo to administer. It also would need to make financial sense to the zoo, with the new benefits costing the same if not less per member visit than the costs of offering free parking. (This posting will not examine the costs of free parking, as it has been covered and debated in other postings.)

Bus/Rail: Could the zoo and Metro develop a way to provide discounts on Metro Rail or Metro Bus trips when FONZ members visit the zoo?

Bike: Could the zoo permit the setup of Capital BikeShare locations with special incentives for FONZ members when they dock a bike at the zoo? Could the zoo, in partnership with local bike shops, purchase discount gift cards for distribution to zoo members who park their own bike in a designated area at the zoo for at least a certain amount of time?

Walk: Could the zoo provide additional FONZ member benefits for those who walk to the zoo from their neighborhood or hotel?

Car: Could the zoo modify existing free parking benefits to encourage families or friends with multiple memberships to carpool instead of each using their free parking with a separate vehicle?

Understandably, it's easy for the zoo to provide free parking. It's a well established process in use by recreational facilities and malls around the world. It's easy to verify whether someone arrived by car. (However, as the January 1, 2011 change in parking rates from unlimited to "up to three hours" shows, a site needs to ensure that the free parking is not abused.)

Transit, bike, or foot benefits for zoo members would take some analysis and integration by the zoo and potential partners such as Metro and Capital Bikeshare. These new benefits would not be free, though neither is the existing parking benefit truly free.

How could the National Zoo could provide these or other innovative benefits for FONZ members who arrive by transit, bike or foot?