Parking Solution Sought for Stadium Neighborhood
Short of making opening day at the new baseball stadium "Ride Metro Here and We'll Give You $100 Day," city officials and team owners are still trying to find a way to deal with what is likely to be a traffic and parking crush come March 29.
According to the Post, the team is estimating that they will need 5,000 parking spaces for season ticket holders. Of those, 1,200 are being handled by the city, with the remaining 3,800 left to team officials. And since neither a 25-story parking deck nor just throwing a whole lot of pavement over the immediate square-mile radius are feasible options, the team is still considering having fans park at RFK and shuttle over.
Hoping to prevent fans from parking in the surrounding neighborhoods, Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) is looking to implement a pilot parking plan that would limit where non-Ward 6 cars could park, while using market pricing for curbside parking along retail corridors and adjacent side streets. The plan, which was recently introduced as legislation before the D.C. Council, would extend the hours during which non-Ward 6 drivers could only park for two hours on residential streets. Currently, the two-hour parking limit ends in the early evening. The plan would also call for the installation of multi-space meters -- which are currently used in Georgetown and Adams Morgan -- along retail corridors and extend the hours of meter enforcement into the evenings and on weekends, thus ensuring a higher turnover of parking spots.
Photo by slack13
Wells has announced three townhall meetings to discuss the plan, the first of which took place yesterday (JDLand was there to cover it), a second which will occur tonight at Brent Elementary School (301 North Carolina Ave., SE) at 6 p.m. and a third which is set for January 30 at the John Wilson Building at 6 p.m.
The final contours of this plan and its implementation could well serve as a model for other parts of the city that regularly suffer from hotly contested on-street parking. While drivers, both from the District and beyond, love exploiting the city's on-street parking regulations (especially the lack of enforcement during evening hours), we're still far behind other cities in implementing rules that limit how long certain drivers can park in certain areas, how the city can collect revenue from its most profitable parking areas, and how best to push people towards mass transit. Wells' plan for Ward 6 -- especially the area around the new ballpark -- might be a good place to start.