Posts about Teacher Parking
Parking
Can Mt. Pleasant parking be pleasant but fair?
DDOT has decided not to implement the Mount Pleasant Day Parking Pass program, at least not as currently conceived. The program would have designated some blocks in the neighborhood as eligible for day pass parkers, if those blocks had low curb occupancy during the day. Employees of area businesses could have purchased a pass for $160 per quarter, or just more than daily bus fare, to park on those blocks from 9 am to 5 pm.
Bancroft Elementary. Photo by NCinDC.
This idea arose when Monroe and Newton Streets and Ingleside Terrace decided to join the Residential Permit Parking (RPP) system. Those are the northernmost three streets in the neighborhood, and both Stoddard Baptist Nursing Home and Bancroft Elementary are located on Newton. Many of those employees currently park on the three non-RPP streets. However, as Jack McKay illustrated, that policy also entices many car owners to warehouse their vehicles for long periods of time on the three streets, making parking occupancy inappropriately high.
McKay and other neighborhood leaders proposed the Day Pass program to give Stoddard and Bancroft an alternative when the three streets convert to RPP and employees can no longer park legally during the day. However, DDOT decided to reject the plan because, according to the City Paper, DDOT's parking manager Damon Harvey doesn't think teachers should have to pay for parking. Harvey would prefer to change the RPP hours to allow parking during the day but prohibit it at night.
However, while that plan would fix some of the problems in the area, it would maintain others.
We considered a 5-to-10pm RPP, for the blocks about to go RPP. Didn't fly. The residents of these blocks really don't want to be the designated free commuter parking zone for all of Mount Pleasant. There would be no control over how many commuters might park there, and there's already a problem of commuters parking on these blocks, then hiking to 16th Street to take the bus downtown, a practice we do not care to support. Nor would there be any financial compensation to the neighborhood for their allowing their streets to be used for commuter parking, as there will be with the daytime passes.Harvey's perspective on parking also ignores the larger role parking policy plays in transportation. A teacher who drives to work currently pays nothing to park all day, every day. A teacher who takes the bus pays $2.50 a day; a teacher who takes Metrorail probably pays between $3.30 a day and $9 a day. How is this fair, and why should we preserve a status quo that allows this to persist over another, likely better alternative?
There were also some issues with the day pass program as conceived. For instance, spending $160 for a whole quarter is a lot at one go, and then creates an incentive to drive every day. A better plan would let people buy passes one day at a time, or in coupon books that they could use as needed. That's relatively easy.
The bigger issue was whether to limit passes by institution. DDOT originally planned to allow each business to purchase only a limited number of passes, to spread out the parking load instead of simply filling up one part of the neighborhood, such as the area around Stoddard and Bancroft. If the purpose of RPP is to ensure some parking availability for residents, without such limits Monroe, Newton and Ingleside would again end up very crowded and the other streets not.
Some posters on the Mount Pleasant forum suggested using the nearby DC USA garage. Right now, it's very cheap to park for up to four hours, but much more pricey for longer periods. DC could work out a new pricing arrangement to offer a relatively low-cost all-day parking option for local employees.
On Monday, Jim Graham is hosting a community forum to discuss solutions. The meeting starts at 6:30 at La Casa, 3166 Mt. Pleasant St. The Day Pass program and reverse RPP times are among the solutions. What do you think DC should do?
Here's one possibility: Offer local employees two types of passes. For $2.50 a day, they could park in DC USA. For $5 a day, they could park on neighborhood streets. Offer each pass on a daily basis, as something you can print out from home, a coupon book, or something similar. Use the money to give all teachers at Bancroft a special transportation stipend equal to $2.50 a day, and to give Stoddard some kind of benefit as well (such as a tax credit, if they pay any taxes). Teachers who want to park at DC USA won't lose any money. Teachers who want to park closer can pay a small amount to do so. And teachers who take transit can use the stipend to pay for their bus or Metro fare instead.
Any other ideas?
Parking
(Some) DC teachers want to vote; (some) NY teachers want to park
Teachers displeased with their union's decision not to even hold a vote on Michelle Rhee's proposed two-track contract have launched a petition. It criticizes the WTU's decision as driven by the loudest voices in the room, and calls for a secret ballot vote. Via DC Teacher Chic.
Illegal teacher parking on NYC's Upper West Side. Photo from UncivilSevants.org.
It's the season for undemocratic behavior, as Mayor Bloomberg's plan to extend his own term limits (and the City Council's) without a referendum gains a key political supporter; the Examiner's education columnist lambastes Rhee's sudden firing of a principal, Bloomberg's decision on term limits, and New York teachers union president Randi Weingarten's endorsement of Bloomberg's action.
Term limits aren't the only hot topic in New York education; things are also heating up over the Mayor's decision to drastically cut free parking permits given out to, and frequently misused by, public employees. A teacher wrote to NYC's Gridlock Sam, dismayed that his or her school's permits were dropping from 120 to 52. Sam replied:
Frankly, I don't know why the mayor allows any parking permits for teachers. We have a great transit system, and, somehow, private-sector workers, including local merchants, get to work in even the remotest locations without permits.(Some) teachers bombarded Sam with angry emails, like this one he published this morning:
I teach in a school with 100 staff members near the George Washington Bridge. About a third of our staff commutes from New Jersey and 10% commute from Connecticut, Westchester, or Long Island. We went from 50 to just 13 permits. Using public transit is extremely difficult for those having to travel long distances at a very early hour. The reduced number of permits has created a real problem.Sam responded:
Boy, did I anger a lot of teachers with my lack of sympathy for their parking permit reduction. My answer to you, Jeff, is the same I'd give to any teacher. I don't see any compelling reason to give a teacher a permit when bodega employees and office workers somehow manage to get to work all over the city with no permits. Many use transit. And in your case, several Metropolitan Transportation Authority and NJTransit buses and the A train serve the area, along with multiple opportunities for connections from other parts of the city.If only Sam were so staunchly pro-transit when it comes to Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Parking
Parking review part 3: Forces against fixing parking
Other than residents who don't believe we can effectively manage spillover parking, what obstacles remain to a better approach to parking? Though not the only ones, two popped up several times during the meetings. One is the Federal government. The second, and perhaps more surprising, is schools.
The Federal Government is not monolithic, so it's no surprise that some parts are much better than others on urbanism issues. The National Capital Planning Commission, for instance, has often surprised me in their progressiveness. At the first meeting I attended, a developer from South Carolina appointed by George W. Bush actually suggested closing a road near the Lincoln Memorial to improve pedestrian conditions and reduce traffic.
By contrast, we have the United States Congress, which gives every member and staffer a parking space, and where the quality of one's space is seen as a sign of status. The Capitol is surrounded by such seas of parking it could be plunked in the middle of Des Moines and nobody would notice the difference.
Barbara Zartman, transportation chair of the Committee of 100, gave two examples at the first meeting of bad Federal planning on parking. First, in the proposed expansion of St. Elizabeth's in Southeast, which will become the new DHS headquarters, will have free parking for everyone. Even though it's very near the Congress Heights Metro station and along a proposed light rail line, according to Zartman the agency is "encouraging employees to think they should have own private spaces, available any time."
DHS should copy Stanford's approach, as both are relatively suburban, large-scale campuses with pockets of density nearby. In Stanford's case, they instituted parking cash-outs, so faculty could choose to park at the same cheap rate they had gotten before, or get most of the money Stanford would have spent on parking in their paychecks instead.
To make transit feasible, they created free shuttles from the nearby train station, and saved money by not having to build parking at a cost of around $30,000 and up per parking space.
Schools, too, tend to prioritize parking quite highly, even in low car ownership places like New York. A Manhattan school turned a kids' playground into a parking lot, and the head of their teacher's union defended parking placards as a perk. Members of the parking meeting told similar stories about DC. Schools don't even provide transit passes as an alternative to the free parking space, even worse than Congress which at least gives that very partial cash-out option.
A representative from DDOT told the parking review group that public schools frequently lobby to have a nearby street closed to create more faculty parking, even at schools right near Metro stops and even when the school already has over a hundred parking spaces. Another member of the group related the following story about a school. Originally, it had very little staff parking, and almost everyone carpooled to school. Then, a garage was built, which could only accommodate some of the staff. But now that many people had free parking spaces, everyone else felt entitled to them, and pressure to build even more parking was stronger than before.
Parking should never become an entitlement. While some schools are far from transit and many teachers live far from their schools, it's unfair to use teachers' role as providing a vital public service as leverage to get a perk that's contrary to the public interest. Let's give the teachers the money instead of spending it on car storage.
Parking
UFT still narrow-minded on parking
Sam Schwartz, former NYC Traffic Commissioner who reduced placard parking in the 1980s, released his ten-part recommendation for reducing placard abuse. But the UFT has other ideas, passing a resolution asking for expanded rights to park on their schools' scarce property.
Parking
UFT disappoints on parking
Randi Weingarten, president of NYC's United Federation of Teachers, acted against the public interest by defending parking placards for teachers, as just another type of benefit and digging in her heels to protect the status quo.
Unions are a controversial part of our society and economy. Years of conservative framing have made many citizens deeply suspicious of unions, though they
As the comments on Edwize, the UFT's own blog, reveal, teachers don't agree that they need parking. Most schools have accessible public transit and little parking space, yet as Streetsblog tells us, teachers, cops and firefighters are twice as likely to drive, even from neighborhoods where most residents commute by transit. Teachers who do take transit don't benefit from the parking placard giveaway.
Instead of subsidizing driving, as the permit program does, we could find better solutions. Teachers in less accessible schools could receive an added salary bonus, which they could use to drive and pay to park, or take transit and afford taxis from time to time, or move closer to the school. By giving out free parking, the only solution available to the teacher is to drive. We should instead give teachers freedom and resources to solve mobility problems on their own.
Weingarten could have argued for this, or a cash-out law like California's or (as one Edwize commenter suggests) paired her criticism with support for congestion pricing. High rates of asthma, obesity, and dangerous streets affect children and teachers more than the need for parking. The UFT's slogan is "teachers want what children need." Children don't need school administrators using their playgrounds as parking lots.
@ggwash
