January 22, 2006
Opinionist: Parking Problems Require Different Approach
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I'm pleased to see that a vocal opposition to Mayor Anthony Williams' current proposal to raise fees and place limits on residential parking permits has already cropped up, because it is a truly terrible plan. Not only will it create an additional financial strain on D.C. residents who already pay through the teeth to live in this city, but it will do little to nothing in terms of improving the congested street parking situation in many District neighborhoods.
The mayor's proposal would limit the number of permits to three per household, and at the same time increase fees from the current $15 per year to a staggered system of $25 for the first permit, $50 for the second, and $100 for a third. Williams submitted this plan, he said, with an aim toward encouraging more residents to give up their cars and use public transportation, thus easing the current parking strain. While it's easy enough to see that this plan, should it be enacted, would serve as a quick revenue boost for the District, I am hard-pressed to imagine how it will actually solve the parking problem -- a problem that clearly could use a real solution. Are there really so many four or five car households in D.C. (with all their vehicles properly registered with the DMV, to boot) that putting a three car cap would actually spell fewer cars parked on the street? Would saving $50 or $100 per year actually be incentive enough for most District car owners to ditch their wheels in favor of WMATA? Is this really the best plan to improve parking and increase use of public transit we can come up with?
It's clear the answer to all these questions is no. Anyone who has ever tried to park in a neighborhood like Adams Morgan or Dupont Circle can tell you that most of the additional cars clogging up the streets have out-of-state license plates. Whether these cars belong to daily commuters, D.C. residents who are failing to comply with the law, or visitors from nearby communities looking for a night out on the town, they are the ones that should be targeted by a new parking plan. Residential parking zones are supposed to protect residents. The idea behind asking someone to go to the trouble of providing proof of residency to obtain a parking permit is that the right of that resident to park near their own home supersedes that of a person who lives elsewhere. Not only does the mayor's parking "solution" not address the issue of out-of-state automobiles, it could potentially exacerbate it by encouraging more D.C. residents to look for ways to sidestep the law and fail to obtain a residential permit in the first place.
My guess is also that hardly anyone will be swayed to sell their car to save less than $200 a year. People keep and drive cars because they are more convenient than public transportation, not because they are more cost effective. The only meaningful way we can encourage more D.C. residents to ride Metro is to make it increasingly less inconvenient than driving. In case you hadn't guessed, I own a car, and I drive it from my home in Shaw to my office in Glover Park everyday. It takes me about 20 minutes each way. If I were to give up my car and rely on the public transit system, it would take me over an hour to travel the 3 mile distance between home and work, requiring a combination of at least two buses, or two different metro lines plus a short bus ride at the end. D.C. public transportation has a lot of things going for it, and I use it plenty on the weekends to get around the center of the city. But it does not offer the easy solution Mayor Williams thinks it does for every single D.C. resident. When it comes down to potentially shelling out an extra $50 per year to keep my car vs. adding 80 minutes to my daily commute, the choice is pretty clear.
All this is not to suggest that we ought not to be looking at serious solutions to decrease parking congestion and increase use of public transportation. Nobody likes spending 30 minutes looking for a parking space when they come home at night, as some residents in densely populated neighborhoods report they routinely do. And everybody is in favor of cleaner air and less traffic. But city officials need to come up with a plan that will actually be effective in achieving these two goals.
The first step, though people will groan, is to crack down on residential parking violations. Extend the "permit-only" hours in zones with the worst parking problems, and enforce those hours. This is the only way we can ensure that residents are able to park near their homes at night, and still be fair to those of us who live in group homes and may have three car owners living under the same roof. I have also heard anecdotal evidence that some residents are abusing the visitor pass system -- special passes that residents can obtain free of charge for up to 15 days for visitors -- by giving them to their roommates who refuse to register their cars in D.C. I admit I'm not quite sure how best to solve this problem, but if it's truly rampant, we ought to think hard about how to encourage new residents to comply with registration laws.
The second step, as I see it, is where city officials will have get a little more creative, but it clearly includes continuing to update and expand WMATA's reach throughout the city. As a resident of Shaw, I am a big proponent of Scott Pomeroy of the MidCity Business Association's crusade to extend the Yellow line, and I'm guessing there are other clever D.C. residents out there who have solid ideas on how to make relying on public transportation more attractive. I would love to get rid of my car and do my part to ease traffic in D.C., but until I can convince my bosses to move our offices downtown, I'll continue to drive, and park, on D.C. city streets. And I'm willing to pay for my annual residential street parking permit for the privilege. I'm even willing to pay a reasonable $25 instead of the current $15 fee. But the mayor is kidding himself if he really believes his plan to fleece District residents of any more money than that will actually improve the parking situation in this city.
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I wouldn't mind paying a higher fee if they'd just get rid of the stupid unzoned pockets (i.e., my block). It is beyond ridiculous that my neighbors up the street can park in front of my house, but if I park in front of there's I get a ticket. Our block circulated a petition to get our street zoned, but we'll see how fast the wheels of the DC government turn.
Full-time students with out-of-state plates can purchase (for big bucks) a residential parking permit. Which means they live in the neighborhood but maintain permenant residency in their home state, for reasons of voting (like for a senator...!), taxes, or tuition. At any rate, out-of-state plates are not necessarily the problem here.
I actually think that residential parking permits should be more expensive. $25 for a whole year? That's amazing! Or maybe they could be pro-rated to match the rent rates in the neighborhood. Who knows. And that's not the point of this comment. The point is - try lay blame where blame due.
I don't think parking is nearly the problem people think it is. It's only a really bad problem in the most popular places to live, i.e. Connecticut Ave. cooridor, Georgetown, Adams Morgan, etc. If you think it's expensive to live in those places now, imagine how bad it would be if somehow parking were abundant.
In a vast majority of the District's geography, parking isn't really that big of a deal. I think people that decide to live in places like Dupont or Adams Morgan just have to accept that they can't park there easily. I don't see why people living outside these parking nightmare-zones should have to pay higher parking fees (or be unable to have four cars) just to make life easier on Dupont car owners.
But I agree with Sommer that this won't really do anything but create more DC revenue, which will be promptly wasted.
Time lived in DC: 8 years
# of Group Houses lived in DC: 7
# of roommates had in DC: 28
# of roommates with Cars that had DC plates: 3
Answer: New law proposal by Mr. Dental Floss Tycoon; To get city utilities (i.e. electric, water, phone) you must provide a valid DC drivers license.
To Dental Floss Tycoon,
Worst........Idea..........Ever.................
I clearly have a lot of reading to do and a lot of policy to learn.
One screamingly obvious way of creating more parking spaces is to allow cars to park up to the corner, or at least up to the crosswalk? I've never seen anything like the no parking spaces at the ends of blocks in Adams Morgan before. Eliminating those would create four more parking spaces per intersection.
I also completely don't understand parking zones. Where are my friends from NY supposed to park when they drive down for a visit? My whole neighborhood seems to be zoned. Can a get a visitor's zone card to put in their windshield since I don't own a car and am theoretically making it easier by one person less looking for parking for everyone else on my block?
Are parking zones related to taxi zones? Why don't they just put in meters? For parking and taxis?
For the neighborhoods like Adams Morgan, Dupont, and Georgetown where parking is a problem b/c of nightlife, etc., the answer should be 24-hour resident zones, with centralized meters for folks who want to visit.
That way, nobody will be able to get away with parking without paying.
The idea of making tax-paying citizens pay more for is absurd.
I'd have to agree with Mr. Guy. That's not a great idea. For one, all that would do is make it so that one person in a house has a license. How's that going to affect parking? Second, people who live here only a few months (i.e. interns, etc.) should not have to get a license to get utilities (I know they're normally subleting, but the primary tenant often turns off the utlities so they won't get stuck with a huge bill). Third, it can be a huge pain in the ass to get a license in DC. Do you expect people to not have utilities while they negotiate with the DC DMV?
It seems to me that if people without parking permits were the problem, wouldn't increased enforcement be the answer? We could hire Arlington's enforcement team; they're pretty quick on the trigger.
My suggestion would be to make the zones MUCH smaller. As it currently stands, the zones are generally Ward-wide. Folks who live in say Georgetown, may park in residential parts of Dupont and Logan Circle. Likewise, AU Park and Friendship Heights residents can park in Cleveland Woddley Park all day. Seems to me if the idea is to benefit the residents of the neighborhood, the definition of neighborhood should be tightened.
It's amazing that the Mayor feels that the parking problem is so problematic that he wants to increase fees for tax-paying DC residents but refuses to enforce lawfully enacted parking regulations against out-of-state church parishoners who literally park in the middle of the street, creating severe safety hazards and blocking in vehicles of legally parked residents. I live in Logan Circle, where congregants of four churches literally double-park the street 5 - 6 nights a week and most of the weekend such that property owners like myself who pay literally thousands of dollars a year in property taxes can't park near our homes without risk of having our vehicles blocked by illegally parked cars. I support the churches, but I think that they should learn to respect the residents and act responsibly to provide parking for their members and be good neighbors. I also have no problem with paying higher fees for parking permits, but only so long as the city begins enforcing the laws so that my permit has value and I am able to park near my own home without fear of being illegally blocked in while the police and city officials ignore the problem and play politics over protecting the tax-paying, law-abiding citizens of this city.
Anyone with a valid DC drivers license can get a 2 week parking pass from the police station.
People refuse to register their cars in this city, they park in parking garages, non-zoned streets, or simply work during ticketing hours, and park after hours. FILLING THE PARKING SPOTS IN THE EVENING AND ON WEEKENDS!
Some live here for years and years and years with out of states tags. Why is that? Nobody is making them register their cars, that's why.
Thus, the persons who do register their cars, foot the bill for parking etc.
How would one deal with the parking problems any other way?
the answer should be 24-hour resident zones, with centralized meters for folks who want to visit.
That way, nobody will be able to get away with parking without paying.
I like this idea.
It seems to me that if people without parking permits were the problem, wouldn't increased enforcement be the answer?
Enforcement of what? Everyone is within the law parking on the street with out of state tags, for years and years on end. Nothing is keeping them from taking those parking spaces after work. Nobody is making them have to pay any taxes, or registration except their old states or, aka mom and dad's house.
Second, people who live here only a few months (i.e. interns, etc.) should not have to get a license to get utilities (I know they're normally subleting, but the primary tenant often turns off the utlities so they won't get stuck with a huge bill).
Umm, gee so interns and visitors to the city shouldn't pay for anything while here? Are they any different than you and I Joe Citizen? How about a temporary residency card, with a small fee? That would be great right? Or do you think we should fit the bill for them too?
Two words: Congestion Charge
Let's see how fast this gets ripped apart.
The only thing that will alleviate the parking problems in Adams Morgan is 24 hour resident only parking. I went to Vancouver last year and they have this. Although I was a bit pissed to pay $11 for parking, the reality was my only contribution to the city was a few paltry dollars on meal and hotel tax and I could have chosen to use taxis and busses.
The businesses in Adams Morgan (who want VA and MD residents to come and spend money) donate lots of money to the city council campaigns and thus their votes are bought and paid for on the parking issue.
Yes I do think that interns and visitors should not have to get licenses here. Whether they have to "pay" anything while there here is silly. They do pay. They pay real estate taxes via their rent. They pay sales taxes on all those drinks they have at crappy bars like the Front Page, etc. If you're looking to gouge them, I don't see how making them get a drivers license in DC is going to even help.
I like the idea of 24 zone parking, but we get back to the whole induced demand issue. If you cut down on visitor parking, you'll only induce more residents to have cars. It may help somewhat (and I think it works great in Arlington, especially in very residential neighborhoods immediately next to very commercial zones, i.e. Clarendon) but I think in places like Adam's Morgan and Dupont it's just the cost of doing business.
Mr. Tycoon is right that enforcement is pointless if so many out of state platers just move their car enough. I think Arlington offers another idea there. In Arlington, you must pay taxes on your car if it is "garaged" in Arlington. Therefore if a cop sees your car in a neighborhood enough, he can ticket you for not showing a tax sticker whether the street is a zone street or not (back when I lived there, I got hit with a warning even before my 30 day grace period was up). I'm not suggesting we institute a car tax (unless we're going to cut the income tax at the same time), but maybe there's a way you could ticket cars for being "garaged" in DC without changing all the signs to 24 hour zones.
But again I reiterate my point that parking is only a problem to a very few amount of neighborhoods. It's just what happens in popular urban neighborhoods.
Since I always like to suggest how other areas do things.
Let me say a couple things.
In Berkeley, Calif., which also has a large student population, residential parking permits are in VERY small zones. Charlottesville does this also, and leaves it up to a majority of local residents to decide if they want to zone their neighborhood.
San Francisco, oddly, doesn't have zoned parking, but has SEVERELY limited on-street parking and off street as well (no alleys for instance). It's part of a system called "Transit First" which believes that if you don't have room to park, you won't. Of course, it's easy in SF to raise a house and insert a garage underneath. And is done all the time.
Japan has NO on street parking, just to add a little international flavor. And you can't register a car unless you have proof of a place to park it.
California requires that you register your car within 10 days of moving to the state. Even if you are student. That means a couple of things (a) most students in California even if they are FROM another state actually become residents and pay in-state tuition and (b) the CHP patrol student parking lots looking for out of state plates. Also since your plate is associated with the VIN number, the plate states with the car when it is sold.
Chicago and suburbs also have a "city sticker" (aka the garaged sticker as in Arlington) that you must display on your car. This however wouldn't apply to commuters in commuter lots. But it would apply to all those out of state tags I've seen in alleys in Upper Northwest.
DC1974
Not to argue, but for California the registration time limit is 20 days after employement is begun or residency established. Also, merely because students are going to school in California does not presume they have established residency. While most out-of-state students do establish residency, this has everything to do with paying less for tuition and nothing to do with registering one's automobile.
Also, I have never seen CHP patroling university parking lots, whether they are looking for our of state tags or not.
I hate the idea of smaller zones. Small zones penalize densely populated areas, which are the same areas that already have the parking problems.
I honestly have never understood the parking zone system. Why can't someone from ward 8, for example, park in ward 2 during the day if they happen to work there? Seems to me if you pay for the city parking pass, you should get to park in the city.
I guess the program is called "residential" parking because you're supposed to be able to park near your house. However, it seems the most efficient way to divy up the parking would be allow people to park in the city who pay to do so. I'd imagine folks rarely work in the same zone as which they live, but I have no data to back that up.
I live near a zone boundry, and there's always more parking in the "other" zone. Wouldn't it be better to allow the parking to fill in where it's available rather than marking off arbritrary physical boundaries for the zones?
I honestly have never understood the parking zone system. Why can't someone from ward 8, for example, park in ward 2 during the day if they happen to work there? Seems to me if you pay for the city parking pass, you should get to park in the city.
Wow that's quite a sense of entitlement! "Damn those out-of-state commuters who choose to park on my street even for a random hour on the weekend, but I should be able to park in front of someone else's house for 8+ hours a day because I live in the same political boundary as them." Your idea is completely unreasonable. First, since offices are more concentrated near some residential neighborhoods (Dupont, Foggy Bottom, etc) than others, you are essentially causing the problem for others that you are complaining about yourselves!
Besides, do you really think that by paying for a DC residential permit, you're buying the right to park in any neighborhood in the city? Considering the thousands of dollars you would pay for a garage space in those neighborhoods, a residential parking permit should cost a lot more if that were the case! Besides, if living in the city and registering your car gave you the right to free parking at work, don't you think the housing prices in non-metro accessible neighborhoods would skyrocket? That suddenly is a very strong perk.
While I agree that a city-wide parking pass could be abused I also feel for those who work in residential-zoned neighborhoods that they don't live in. For a while I worked at an office in Georgetown, where all of the surrounding streets were residentially zoned. I usually took a combination of 2 or 3 buses (which resulted in a lot of walking since the schedules were variable to say the least) or took two trains and then hopefully a 30 bus would show up or I would have another mile-long walk ahead of me. To travel the 2.5 miles from my apt. in Columbia Heights to my office it took between 45 minutes and 90 minutes, and there was nothing predictable about it.
When the weather was bad, or I had an early morning meeting that I needed to be at and was afraid of the bus making me late I would drive my boyfriend's car. It had a zone 1 sticker and Georgetown is zone 2. Moving your car in a congested neighborhood every two hours during the workday is hardly conducive to being a productive employee, but short of moving to ward 2 there was literally nothing I could do about it. There's got to be a way to accomodate DC residents who work in neighborhoods that are not the most accesible, and who live elsewhere in the city.
e: I appreciate that you agree with me such a city-wide pass would be abused. But what you go on to say after that, is exactly what I'm arguing against! Why do you think DC owes you a solution to your problem? People who commute into DC to work from neighboring jurisdictions face the same types of time-wasting hurdles you do, plus more! I know you would say that doesn't matter, since they don't pay DC taxes, but they do support the city in other ways (patronizing businesses, restaurants, adding productivity to businesses which do pay DC taxes, etc). So why should your problem be so much more important than theirs? By extension, anyone should be able to park in front of their place of work -- and that would undo everything the residential parking permit sought to solve!
Gonna touch base on a few things here:
- If you want to create smaller parking zones, do it by ANC (e.g. a Zone 2A permit, or a Zone 6C permit). You could then have the ANC zoning enforced from 9pm to 9am, helping ensure that local residents get the lion's share of the parking spaces (e.g. a Zone 2A permit would be good for all of Zone 2 during the day, but only for the specific ANC during the overnight hours).
- As far as the pegging the price of a permit on prevailaing rent rates goes, that'll really whack people who live in less pricey places in an otherwise expensive area - not a good solution.
- I think that the California and Virginia methods are good approaches - perhaps the Virginia method more than the California one, though it, too, has merit. Basically, we need to encourage people to change their registration. For those on short-term visits, a "garage tax" is a fine way to go. The student parking permit currently available is perhaps a bit too pricey - maybe lower its price to $150 and call it a "garage permit."
When I first moved to DC, it took me a while to get my car registered (though getting a license was rediculously easy, Reid, so I'm not sure where you ran into the difficulty - DC has reciprocity with almost all states). During this time, it was tough to get a parking spot without getting ticketed. And eventually the local cops (Dupont Circle/Embassy Row area) noticed my overnight parking tendencies and issued tickets for failing to register.
But this doesn't seem to be the norm. So I think that the key work in all of this is that the enforcement of parking rules and regulations needs to be consistent. The WaPo "District" section had a story about this last week, and they noted that there is no coordinated system for issuing and enforcing visitor permits. This is an easy change to pull off, so long as somebody in DC government takes ownership of the cause.
Frankly, I think that the permit prices do need to go up, though perhaps on a more graduated scale (e.g. $25 for the first car, $25 for the second, $75 for the third, and so forth). I really believe that people should be discouraged from owning too many cars in an urban area that has mass transit. Granted, the Metro system is heavily skewed toward the monied areas of DC, so any parking permit changes need to go hand in hand with a revamping of Metrobus and other mass-transit services.
But yes, something needs to be done with the parking situation. But I'm not convinced that it's completely broken, either. Living in Dupont, little more than a block from the Connecticut Avenur restaurants and bars, I can usually find a parking space within a block of my apartment (even on Friday and Saturday evenings) - and at worst, I can find a place within 2 blocks. It's not bad, and I'm not assuming that I'll be able to find a place directly in front of my building, nor do I feel entitled to one at all hours, every day. I simply assume that my Zone permit will allow me to park in my neighborhood, within a reasonable distance of my home.
The problem in DC is not too little parking, it's too many cars. (And too many people unnecessarily driving three miles from Shaw to Glover Park. No way it takes an hour to make the trip on transit, especially if you're willing to walk a bit. I could walk it in an hour and bike it 20 minutes. Plus, what ever happened to sacrificing a little personal convenience for the greater good -- cleaner air, fewer children with asthma, less global warming, etc.)
$175 per year to park three cars on City streets is still a very good deal and much less than what market forces would probably dictate. Just because people choose to own a car doesn't mean that the City should cater to that decision (a poor personal financial decision when living and working in a walkable city with decent transit). I live a very happy and fulfilling life without a car. If nothing else, I could care less about parking, though I do get tired of the sense of entitlement all car owner's seem to share.
WeCoPat. I'm sorry. I misspoke about the 10 day requirement. You are write. It is 20 days.
As for the registration and licensing, the bar is incredibly low for establishing residency in California. You basically do this by applying for and getting a Calif. ID. Which is basically a requirement under the 20-day rule. Having gone to school in Virginia as an out of state student and gone to school in California, I've seen how different that is. And how easy it is to establish residency. Even if you are only going to take a community college class.
As for the CHP sting in parking lots. Here is a short link to that initiative that was just getting underway when I left in 2004. The plan, according to media reports at the time, was also to patrol student parking lots, whether you witnessed it or not.
I'm going to echo something rg said which is, do you really own a car to go 3 miles to work each day? That is just sad. As they said, you could walk it or - if shower areas are available - bike it in no time. Sell your car and on bad weather days take a taxi and you'll come out ahead on costs. Plus you won't have to spend so much time bitter and angry about all of those out-of-state parkers.
Ms. Mathis asks "Would saving $50 or $100 per year actually be incentive enough for most District car owners to ditch their wheels in favor of WMATA?"
No, but it doesn't have to be. It only has to make enough people give up their cars for WMATA or the joys of bicycle commuting. Maybe $100 isn't enough, but there is some dollar value X which will make enough people give up their cars to bring the demand for parking into line with the supply.
"Maybe $100 isn't enough, but there is some dollar value X which will make enough people give up their cars to bring the demand for parking into line with the supply."
You're wrong about that washcycle. Supply is meeting demand right now, it's just not at a price that people like. Right now the price of parking in places like Dupont is the cost of the permit (a neglible amount) and then the cost of dealing with not being able to come and go as you please. If demand were higher than supply, the cost would skyrocket to infinity (i.e., there would never be an open spot).
Obviously there is an equilibrium right now where a certain amount of people pay the price (i.e. negligible fee plus personal frustration) and park in these neighborhoods. Raising the permit fee would actually screw up that equilibrium. If you raised it ridiculously high, you could create a situation where people would not have cars despite the fact that they are willing to pay the frustration "cost" of finding parking. What you'd have left would be those with the most flexible demand. They'll pay the most and would be getting the best product, i.e. easy parking.
Whether this would satisfy most people is debatable (you bike snobs would obviously love it). It depends on what Williams means by "more parking". If it means allowing more drivers to find parking spots, then the answer is no. If it means restricting the market to higher priced and higher "quality" parking, then yes it will. But I doubt he's advertising it as a boon to those of means.
The problem is that people have an irrational wish that other people's demands will fall, but not their own. Like the commuter that wishes everyone would take the train, except him. That's not possible.
Oh and give me a break that walking 6 miles each day is a reasonable option (especially uphill to Glover Park each morning). Perhaps if you're allowed to smell like a hog at your job, then it's possible, however most professional people could not walk three miles before work during the average DC summer without feeling like crap all day long. Quite frankly, bikes are not much better. Very few professionals can ride bikes to work without the availability (and hassle) of a shower at work.
We get it. You have an "active" lifestyle. Bully for you. Jesus, you sound like jocks comparing how much they can bench.
Reid, I agree 100 percent. It's great that some people can bike/walk to work. I occasionally bike and I usually walk home from work (because that way I can jump in the shower if I'm a little stinky at the end). When I don't, thanks to my new and fabulous office location, I take the bus. But there's plenty of people for whom this simply is not an option. When I worked in Georgetown, it was for a small business, we didn't even have a kitchen in the office, much less a shower. Meeting with clients while smelling like you had a 30 minute workout immediately prior--not so good for business. On top of that, at the time I was working a second job where I stood on my feet for eight hours at a time. With those hours, it's hard to have the energy to coax yourself back up the hill at the end of the day. I agree that there are parking issues in DC, we all do, but it's a little too easy to judge people that have cars. So she's driving three miles, maybe there's a perfectly good reason for it. So you walk or bike--great! It's fantastic that your schedule and health accomodate that. But not everyone's are going to.
As others have touched on, there is no parking problem in DC. There just is no parking. Face it. Find other methods to get where you're going or adapt to the challenges of limited parking spaces. Problem solved.
Interesting comments from West Hollywood, via e-mail:
I happened to catch your article about DC's parking permit policies in the 1/22 edition of DCist.
Preferential parking policies work best in areas with low residential density. As an ex-east coaster I'm very familiar with Dupont Circle.
Fifteen years have passed and it sounds like conditions may have even worsened since I relocated, if that is possible.
This is because of density. The reality is the out-of-state vehicle issue needs to be addressed to make a difference in parking availability. The number of street spaces never increases. Someone has to be excluded from the mix to make permit parking effective. The answers always point toward better mass transit or more prohibitive parking regulations. The off-street parking resources need to be considered when on-street parking policy is drafted.
For example some California cities have developed centralized valet zones that are used to get employees and visitors off residential streets.
The concept is a parking garage may be completely empty in an office building 3 or 4 blocks away that people perceive to be too far to be a good space, but don't mind a five minute wait for someone to retrieve the car and bring it back to them.
Parking theory is not rocket science, but to make an effective policy for residential parking you have to know who and how long vehicles are parking. Enforcement is another factor. Are violations cited? Call it progressive discipline, but if all violators are ticketed and still do not open up spaces, then towing is another option to "remove" vehicles that do not have parking permits, or in other words a "hunting license".
Don Norte
City of West Hollywood
Parking Services and Development Officer
In Chicago a vehicle city sticker costs $75/year. Some neighborhoods are resident-only 24/7 zoned and they suck. People need to come and go. Part of the reason you probably like living in Dupont Circle is all the activity, which is why there is no parking. Deal with it and rent a car once a month for all those errands you say you need a car for. It's cheaper. An additional sticker to park in your zone in Chicago is $25/year. Some zones are resident-only M-F, between 9 and 11 a.m. ... this eliminates commuters who live in other neighborhoods filling up your streets because it's closer to the train, yet also alleviates the concerns of nearby business owners who say their customers need to be able to park. Any resident of a zone can purchase visitor passes for friends. They come in packs of ten or more and are good for a 24-hour period. Beyond that, most people who want to live in a city should probably try to live near public transpo ... adapt, don't demand. The city you choose to live in was not designed for cars. Trying to accomodate all the cars will only turn it into a city you no longer will want to live in.