Posts about Parking

Parking management is pro-driver

The parking problem is one of economics (real estate in the city is valuable and scarce) and geometry (cars take up a lot of space). It is not, Tumlin emphasized, a question of ideology. It's not wrong to own a car, not wrong to drive, and it's not wrong to want to park conveniently. But like all good things in life, convenient parking comes at a cost.

What we all want most of all is availability: We want parking to be there exactly where we need it and exactly when we need it.

The best way to get there, he said, is by pricing parking accurately. The "correct" price for parking in any given place is one that keeps a couple of spots per block open. In practice, that means around 85% of the capacity is used—not less, not more. A world with 85% utilization of parking is a world of parking karma for everyone. You can always park where you need to. It's every driver's dream come true—if, that is, you're willing to pay for that spot's true value.

Small pricing differences make a big difference

Does this mean that parking is just a luxury for the rich? Well, no.

One of the most interesting findings of San Francisco's experiments with parking pricing, according to Tumlin, is that demand is extremely sensitive to location. Right on a main drag like Valencia Street, parking might cost $4.50 an hour. Just around the corner on a side street, it might cost $2.50. Just another block away, garage parking might be available for $1.00. As in every other facet of life, you can choose to save money by giving up a little convenience.

Much of DC's policy discussion on parking management focuses on "transit zones" vs. everywhere else. But there are a lot of things that affect demand for parking. The availability of transit nearby is one, but it's just one of many. How dense is the neighborhood? Are there theaters, restaurants, or other attractions? Are there offices nearby? Just as in San Francisco, demand changes dramatically from block to block, and it's hard to say exactly where the demand is without measuring it empirically.

Thus far, data collection on DC's parking pilots has been thin. There has been a very long lag between collecting any data and adjustments to meter rates, and the data DDOT collects is not very fine-grained.

If and when DDOT collects more and more data on driving and parking patterns, we'll start to have a better understanding of the microgeography of parking demand. Hopefully this bring us closer to pricing that reflects observed real-world demand, instead of crude lines drawn on a map by politicians.

Payment mechanisms make a big difference

Much metered parking throughout the country still uses 1947 technology: You pay by feeding quarters into a metal contraption. Out of quarters? You're out of luck.

There's much better technology available today, and in this area DC has been out in front. According to Zimbabwe, 42% of DC parking transactions are paid by phone or using the Parkmobile app.

The friction of having inconvenient payment mechanisms—whether it's machines that only take quarters, or single-block machines that you have to walk five minutes to get to—is more of an issue for people than cost. If you can make payment seamless, then people don't care quite as much about the actual cost, and you have less resistance to increased rates.

My experience with the Parkmobile app has been that it's like magic: You tell the app you're parking, it already knows where you are, and has your credit card and license plate on file, so there's nothing more to do.

Ultimately, license-plate recognition coupled with smartphone apps will eliminate all of the friction of payment. Tumlin suggested you could even agree to have the city just automatically send you a parking bill at the end of each month based on how long you've parked and where.

Decriminalize parking now!

Another fascinating finding from San Francisco's performance parking program is this: When you start charging the right price for parking, meter revenue goes up ... and revenue from parking citations goes down by almost the same amount.

And when you think about it, that's exactly how it should be. Sometimes you don't have enough quarters on you, or you underestimate how long you'll need to park, and can't get back to the meter. That shouldn't make you a lawbreaker. In some neighborhoods, Tumlin pointed out, driving to dinner and movie is a criminal act, because there's no provision at all for out-of-zone parking for more than two hours.

In fact, the whole two-hour exception doesn't make any sense at all. If you're parking for an hour, you should pay for an hour. And if you need to park for three hours or eight hours, you should be allowed to pay for it.

Keep it simple, and don't play favorites

DC currently has a lot of parking programs. There's ordinary metered parking in commercial areas. There's a residential parking permit program and a pilot visitor parking pass program. There are pilot performance parking programs in a handful of neighborhoods.

Recent legislation looked at how to provide for contractor parking. City leaders are working with churches to resolve conflicts over church parking on Sundays. There have been proposals for special teacher parking and firefighter parking.

DDOT recently unveiled a Parking Action Agenda (PDF) that vows to review all of these different programs and propose reforms. We can start by no longer treating all these different categories as exceptional.

As Tumlin forcefully argued, it's not the government's business why you want to park. Are you shopping? Babysitting? Going to church? Commuting to the nearest metro stop? Redoing someone's kitchen? Making a delivery? Visiting a friend? Out on a date? (As Tumlin asked, "And what if your date goes better than expected?")

It shouldn't be the government's job to make value judgments about people's reasons for parking. So let's eliminate complexity and preferential treatment. You don't need a contractor parking program; you don't need a visitor parking program; you don't need a church parking program. You just need accurate pricing so that people can pay a fair price to park wherever they want, for as long as they want.

As Dick VanderHart explains in the Portland Mercury, the neighborhood has a vibrant nightlife which attracted new visitors to the area. Those visitors compete with residents for parking. Curbside parking is free at all times.

Residents can request residential permits to limit visitor parking and overnight parking. Last year, the city created a "mini" parking district program so individual neighborhoods can create new small parking districts, but so far, none have requested one.

Perhaps that's because it's not really hard to park there. In a Bureau of Planning and Sustainability (BPS) survey, most residents said that they usually park on the street 1-2 blocks from their homes and most spend little time looking for parking.

It isn't clear that a parking problem exists in Portland today. Plus, building more off-street parking will not do anything about visitors patronizing the new bars and cafes in the area. That's especially true as long as parking is free on every street in the area. No matter how much garage parking new buildings have, many people will find it more convenient and cheaper to park on the street until the city limits on-street parking or charges for it.

This closely parallels issues in DC. In many neighborhoods, it's becoming more difficult to park. We have parking minimums, but they clearly aren't preventing this. The solution is not to cling tenaciously to parking minimums, but to set up a better system that actually manages on-street spaces.

The Portland zoning code didn't fail. Instead, the residents didn't or couldn't use other parking management tools. We don't know yet if switching the code back will improve matters for unhappy residents—the vote just happened last week—but it's unlikely.

The new Portland policy require one space per 5 units for buildings with 30-40 units, one per 4 for buildings of 41-50 units, and one per 3 for buildings over 51 units. If the developer puts in bike parking and car sharing, they can relieve some of the requirement.

Perhaps because of the impending election, Portland's council may have acted hastily. The city was also working on other policies to deal with parking through basic transportation demand management measures, but that proposal was not finished in time for the council vote.

Opponents have been complaining most strongly about the DC proposal to exempt residential buildings of up to 10 units from parking requirements citywide. Portland still exempts buildings up to 3 times that size.

Plus, while many tout Portland as a transit mecca for its pioneering streetcars and other policies, the percentage of trips by transit here is triple that of Portland, which has no subway at all. TriMet has cut service in recent years, while WMATA has not. DC neighborhoods whose residents consider their transit fairly meager still have a lot of transit by the standards of many parts of Portland.

Portland's parking experience is not proof that parking minimums are necessary. Instead, it shows that politics can get in the way of good parking policy. Just because politicians in one city had a knee-jerk but nonsensical reaction to a certain neighborhood's complaints does not mean DC should do the same.

The meeting is tonight, Thursday, April 11 (or last night for those reading the daily email), 6-8 pm at the Carnegie Library in Mount Vernon Square, L'Enfant Map Room.

Learn about forts: BF Cooling and Gary Thompson, founders of an effort to preserve DC's civil war circle of forts, will give a talk about the forts and their history on Monday, April 15, 7-8:45 pm at the Tenley-Friendship Library.

Get parking right: Next Wednesday, the Coalition for Smarter Growth (CSG) is hosting national parking expert Jeff Tumlin to talk about ways cities are fix parking policy to match supply and demand and build a system that works better for everyone. Sam Zimbabwe, DDOT planning head, will talk about how DC might use Tumlin's ideas.

The forum is April 17 at the Center for American Progress, 1333 H St. NW. There are refreshments at 6 and then the program from 6:30-8:30. RSVP here before it fills up!

Be green around Earth Day: Saturday, April 20 is Earth Day, and there are a lot of great events to celebrate and learn more about how to help the environment. The Anacostia Watershed Society is having a cleanup and celebration, first helping clean up the river at 20 sites from 9 am to noon, followed by a celebration at Bladensburg Waterfront Park.

The Town of Vienna is having a Green Expo on Thursday, April 18, 6:30-9 pm to show off ways to make your own home and life more sustainable, while Loudoun is having a festival on Sunday, April 28th.

Be happy in Arlington: CSG and the Columbia Pike Revitalization Organization are cosponsoring a happy hour in Arlington on Monday, April 22 from 6:30-8:30 pm at William Jeffrey's Tavern, 2301 Columbia Pike. Ask questions about what's going on down the Pike or just meet people and have fun!

Improve the public realm: That same day, NCPC is hosting a speaker from London, Helen Marriage, to discuss ways that city is making its public spaces better. A panel afterward will talk about how some of the ideas could come to DC. That's also 6:30-8:30 pm on Monday, April 22 at NCPC, 401 9th Street NW, Suite 500 North.

The RAC is listening: The WMATA Riders' Advisory Council wants to hear from more riders, especially about how upcoming Silver Line service and changes to buses and trains will affect riders. To that end, they're holding listening sessions outside WMATA HQ, starting with one on April 24, 6:30 pm in the Charles Houston Rec Center, 901 Wythe Street in Alexandria near Braddock Road Metro.

Walk and tour: CSG's spring walking tour series kicks off April 27 with a tour of White Flint, followed by 14th Street, Fairfax's Route 1, Wheaton, and Fort Totten in May and June. Space is limited, so RSVP for your favorite tour now!

Close neighbors worried about potential hazards from the garage exhaust shaft. The Heritage Foundation agreed to move the shaft farther from neighboring homes and raised its height above the alley from 8 to 22 feet. In addition, it will replace an existing cooling tower with a more efficient and quieter model.

An air quality study commissioned by the Heritage Foundation at the request of ANC 6C confirms that there will not be unhealthy levels of CO, NO2 and particulate matter at neighboring properties as a result of this project.

A new Capital Bikeshare station, which Heritage will pay for at a cost of $70,000, will also help encourage employees and visitors to use other forms of transportation. It will also create a neighborhood amenity and improve access for other local businesses along Massachusetts Avenue, NE. This was included at the request of DDOT, before their BZA hearing, but was not in the original filing.

The new rowhouses are a positive improvement to this neighborhood, and recent changes will help mitigate some of the negative impacts of the parking structure.

The ANC voted to support the project, and the BZA will rule on the required variances and special exceptions in the near future. Now that the ANC and many neighbors are in support of this project, it is likely that the BZA will follow suit and approve zoning relief as well.

According to the report from the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), Heritage has agreed to pay for a new 40-foot Capital Bikeshare station, which costs about $70,000. Heritage also will build 42 new bicycle parking spaces, 6 in a locked room and 36 in the new garage, in addition to 10 existing indoor spaces.

Will this below-market parking bring more traffic and encourage more driving?

In this case, the parking garage on 3rd Street will not create a void in the rowhouse fabric because it will be entirely underground, and Heritage will build the 6 new rowhouses above. These new homes match the historic properties on the block, and won support from ANC 6C and the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB).

Current (top) and proposed (bottom) elevations on 3rd Street, NE.
Images from the application. Click for full PDF.

However, this still may bring negative impacts to the neighborhood. The exhaust shaft for the parking structure will be less than 15 feet high, and the Heritage Foundation has not proposed any special filters, landscaping, or other measures to prevent buildup of particulate matter at adjacent properties.

All vehicles will also enter and exit off of a residential block of 3rd Street. A traffic study by Gorove/Slade (commissioned by the Heritage Foundation) found that the adjacent intersection already has a high crash rate, though they speculate without evidence that recent re-striping may have reduced the rate.

The study claims that this project will have a positive impact on traffic and parking, but that is, at best, still an open question.

The study found that many of Heritage's workers take transit, some park on site or at a nearby Heritage-owned lot already, and others park at other private parking lots or garages in the area. A few also park on local streets in the neighborhood—likely a mix of Ward 6 residents and other workers who plan on paying occasional parking tickets.

The traffic study also claims that "traffic will not increase" because "the cars... already drive to the neighborhood; they just park on the street and in other locations. This parking will eliminate the pressure to use on-street parking and will not generate any new traffic."

However, it seems unlikely that the workers already parking on the street—whether legally or illegally—will shift their patterns to park in the new garage. In addition, any existing spaces in other private garages will likely be used by other drivers to the neighborhood, driving more traffic to the neighborhood through induced demand.

The DDOT report says that:

DDOT is generally opposed to Applicants providing more vehicle parking than is necessary for land development projects. Adding parking capacity to an existing facility while holding the development program relatively constant creates potential for additional vehicular trips and increased congestion. ... The additional vehicle parking has the potential to encourage additional commuters to switch from transit, biking, or carpooling to single occupant vehicle travel.

In order to build this project, the Heritage Foundation is seeking relief from the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) from several sections of the zoning code including those related to expanding an existing non-conformance for FAR (771, 2001.3); exceeding the height limit on penthouses (1203.2(b)); vehicles parking across lot lines (2303.1(b)); and building accessory parking in the R-4 zone (214).

Zoning regulations prohibit parking from spanning multiple parcels or serving as accessory to other uses in the R-4 zone in part because it has the potential to mar rowhouse neighborhoods by disrupting home spacing in these dense, historic neighborhoods. For example, some area churches have purchased rowhouses just to raze them for parking lots. This is not allowed by right in the zoning regulations.

In 2011, HPRB denied an application by the Third Street Church of God in Mt. Vernon Triangle to raze 3 historic buildings to create a parking lot (for a net gain of 5-7 parking spaces). If the raze had been granted, the church would have needed similar variances and special exceptions to the ones that the Heritage Foundation is seeking.

Lawyers for the Heritage Foundation claim that zoning relief is justified because of the unique aspects of the property, including that the multiple properties are irregularly shaped, span across two different zones, and the two large buildings facing Massachusetts Avenue NE (214 & 236) are nonconforming in both FAR and height.

The application claims a hardship in part because these lots proposed for the parking garage are zoned residential, which they label an "accident" of history. However, the lots have been zoned R-4 for decades. This block of 3rd Street NE is narrow and has been lined with residential rowhouses for over a century.

One variance that the Heritage Foundation doesn't have to seek is one to exceed maximum parking requirements. There are none in DC, although proposals have been considered as part of the zoning update. Some other cities, such as San Francisco, have instituted parking maximums in certain areas which are close to downtown or otherwise well-served by public transportation. These maximums range from ½ to 1 spaces per unit, with a special exception required for additional parking.

The new rowhouses included in this proposal by the Heritage Foundation will likely be a positive addition to the neighborhood. However, that portion of the project is allowed as a matter-of-right. There does not appear to be much positive impact for the neighborhood or District from a new parking structure, serving a commercial use, in a historic and residential zone.

BZA will hear this proposal at its April 9th meeting, as case number 18531.

Update: We mistakenly first published an earlier draft of this post which did not include more recent information that Heritage is adding a Capital Bikeshare station and indoor bike parking as part of the project. The post has been updated.

Moreover, the rule is only enforced to require building the parking, not using it. Garages that contain required parking spaces are often filled with equipment for lawn care or shop work. County enforcement staff say they have never received a complaint about such violations of the zoning ordinance.

Sometimes, requiring off-street parking actually reduces the availability of parking. Montgomery County mandates one off-street space for houses built between 1955 and 1958. A parking space for a single-family house requires a driveway (except in neighborhoods with alleys, which exist in DC but not MoCo). That takes away at least one parking space, and sometimes more if driveways are spaced closely together.

The parking space goes to waste in the daytime if the owner drives to work. Without an off-street space, there would be no need for a driveway and one more space would open up at the curb. The curb space, available 24 hours a day, would supply more parking than an off-street space that is useless during working hours.

These rules may not do much for those who want to park. But parking minimums do reduce the supply of affordable housing.

Montgomery County requires an extra parking space (and sometimes two) when a property owner splits off part of a house into an accessory apartment. If there's no space to shoehorn the parking onto a small lot, the owner has to go through the time-consuming and expensive special exception process.

New apartment buildings near the Red Line and future Purple Line need underground garages, which can run up to $50,000 per space in lower levels. Driving up construction costs makes it harder to build for the middle class.

From this vantage point, the debate over off-street parking is about much more than where people put their cars. It's about what kind of communities we want to live in. Will our laws put economic limits on who can live here, or will we build places that welcome everyone?