Ballou HS Rocks the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Morning Roundup: Black Friday Edition
Car Pushed Into Anacostia River By Train
The Saturday Morning Post
Here's a question: if you have access to a car, have you ever driven it to the DCUSA complex? Or how about your local supermarket?
If you have, chances are that it was under abnormal conditions - you were purchasing a whole boatload of bulky items, or you were running late to a party across town and needed to stop off for something to bring. We'd bet good money that your experiences with parking at these places is a lot like Marc Fisher's, or David Alpert's, or Rob Goodspeed's - that is to say, there's an awful lot of empty spaces. But the District's zoning requirement which forces new developments to build parking lots that often go woefully unused could soon be coming to an end.
The current zoning rules (PDF), which have been in place since 1958, requires builders to go through a complex set of calculations depending on the type of operation they run in order to quantify the minimum number of spaces they must create on their property. The changes to the code would remove that requirement.
It seems like common sense to us. The reduction in space devoted to cars certainly has great potential. Fewer required spaces for parking means more space for dense, mixed-use building. Financially, having to include parking spaces (which can cost as much as $40,000 a piece) presents a significant cost barrier to developers, who often times will never see that money back. The current code is unkind to new potential development, practically presenting builders with a hefty bill before they even open - never mind the potential delays involved in creating such space, or the built-in costs consumers are forced to pay for residences that automatically come with a parking space they may or may not use.
Photo by maxedaperture
It's important to note that the proposal wouldn't force developers to stop building parking lots - it would just no longer be a requirement.
If you need an example of a successful project that didn't (at least initially) include parking, look at Nationals Park. The new stadium's first few weeks were mostly parking-free, and people managed to get there successfully. In fact, Metro and the Nats did such a good job of promoting taking transit to the ballpark, that when the parking lots did open, they sat mostly vacant - strikingly similar to other such lots that have been recently built.
A Zoning Commission Hearing will take place next Thursday, October 16, to discuss the proposed changes in policy. If you're planning on going, details and materials to review before the meeting can be found here.
It's understandable that people who drive into D.C. consistently might be upset about this change. But think about your answer to the question at the beginning of this post - how much would it really affect you if new developments around town used Metro and biking exclusively to bring in business and people? We know that there's a great many of you in the commentariat who drive regularly - how would the (assumed) decrease in parking affect your tendencies to go to places inside the city? Let us know in the comments.
Good News In Cycle-Land: Here's some positive news that we missed last week: WashCycle posted a pair of reports which indicate that not only are people riding their bikes more places, but they're also combining their usage of mass transit with their love for two-wheeled transportation. According to the two reports, Metro is planning on increasing the amount of bike parking near Metro stations that are seeing an uptick across the system, from Cleveland Park to Falls Church to Silver Spring.
In addition, SmartBike is off to a smashing start - so smashing, in fact, that Montgomery County is thinking about implementing a bike sharing system of its own. We'd love to see more bike-sharing programs, as long as they're somewhat intertwined - much in the way that Metrobuses and RideOn buses can be shared with a SmartTrip card.
Of course, with so many more people on the road, we're always sure to remind people to wear a helmet and bike safely - WABA is trying to work with MPD and the Council to get more safeguards in place, but sometimes the best offense is a good defense.
"Brown" Line Prods Historical Look At Metro Maps: Last night was the Rider Advisory Committee meeting concerning the proposed Blue line split, for now dubbed the 'Brown line,' which would divert some trains from the Blue line to help the burgeoning ridership on the Yellow line into the city's center. The proposal has prodded some discussion about Metro's past, current, and future maps over at Greater Greater Washington - necessary reading if you're a nerd for both transit and maps. Frankly, I've always thought that the lines on Metro's map were always too thick. A similarly thick brown line mushed next to the Blue and Yellow lines would be fairly unappealing for us locals and downright confusing for tourists. The case can be made to just keep the Yellow moniker, as GGW quite thoroughly suggests. (Or WMATA, just, you know, make the lines one-third thinner. We don't have to go crazy like New York or anything. Just a little trim, that's all.)
Engines and Cabooses: Eric Weiss is often hit or miss, but this report about the true cost of congested traffic is completely on the mark... Transitway to connect Shady Grove Metro station to points northwest will be delayed for years to come... Just in time to celebrate the station's 100th birthday, plans for security and pedestrian improvements to Union Station got the OK... As economy declines, all three local airports are seeing fewer passengers... How much station art can you recognize? We got about five - slightly disappointing, if you ask us.
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reducing the amount of parking in the DC is an insane idea. if there's really extra parking there, they should be able to rent some of it out, but the last thing Columbia Heights needs is LESS parking.
(and I don't have a car.)
i never see empty parking spots at the whole foods on P, or the teeny tiny trader joe's parking lot.
I wouldn't use Nats Park as an indicator for parking success.
It's simple-- they drew some of the smallest crowds ever recorded. And those who came were paying for cheap seats and likely were taking the cheap metro.
If they were even close to playing a meaningful game, you better believe there would be all kinds of complaints.
Oh, and junkpunches.
This article is nonsense. Where is Marc,Rob or David trying to park in DC? Like the other poster, my experience is that parking lots are full. This is just another give away to developers.
reducing the amount of parking in the DC is an insane idea. if there's really extra parking there, they should be able to rent some of it out, but the last thing Columbia Heights needs is LESS parking.
Sure they need less required parking. Traffic in the heart of Columbia Heights is bad enough; the city doesn't need to encourage more; can anyone say 'induced demand'?
Also, from reports I've read the condos and DCUSA's parking garages are underutilized. So is Harris Teeter's garage. If you're talking about on-street parking, if the District got tough on out of state parkers at night, then you'd have enough space. Otherwise, suck it up.
Great pic: Thus begins Virgil's descent into the Eighth Circle of Hell, home of the Fraudulent Advisors, a.k.a the parking garage under DC Public Schools HQ.
I tried to ride the "Brown Line" with the wife and ended up sleeping on the couch.
ZING!
Eight out of 10 on the quiz, bitches!
What's the story with Nextbus? The back door links that were being passed around on here a few weeks ago no longer work. It seems as if they've shut the system down completely.
... Written by someone who clearly doesn't have sweet, sweet access to a car. The parking lots I frequent are never empty and forcing more cars onto the streets would have resident up in arms.
This is a city, folks. If you want easy parking and lots of driving, there's a whole lot of suburbia out there with your name on it.
Lots of people like DC, but fail to realize that the things they like about it (urbanism, mass transit, etc.) are antithetical to car usage. Overbuilding of parking is a huge subsidy towards driving, and a vast mistake of urban policy over the last 50 years.
The parking requirements become onerous when building a mixed-use project. For a long while you had to meet the requirement for each use individually. They are now becoming more receptive to looking at when different users (retail vs office, for example) are in a garage and designing paring that meets needs at all times, not necessarily for all uses at all times.
reducing the amount of parking in the DC is an insane idea. if there's really extra parking there, they should be able to rent some of it out, but the last thing Columbia Heights needs is LESS parking.
Who said anything about less? The proposal just wouldn't require the building of more. It doesn't reduce the current parking availability.
At least one situation where I think this proposal makes sense is in building new housing. The Post (I think) had a good story a few weeks ago about a couple that was either building new, but relatively small house. They would be required to add parking, even though they had no plans to buy a car and use the parking. Adding parking would have reduced the square footage of the house. They were able to obtain a waiver, but it took several months. Why make them jump through the hoops?
DCUSA parking is definitely underused. i've zipcarred there at least ten times since it was finished and i've gotten a spot right next to the doors everytime.
Financially, having to include parking spaces (which can cost as much as $40,000 a piece) presents a significant cost barrier to developers, who often times will never see that money back.
Which is why developers usually get the local government to pay for those parking spaces. In the case of DCUSA, the developer (Horning Brothers) wanted EVEN MORE PARKING than they actually got. At the time the deal was percolating, they wanted to maximize the number of customers from all over town and some just aren't going to take Metro. So it's not always a case of the big, bad government forcing parking spaces on cash strapped urban developers. It's that the developers know their customers are lazy and scared and who'd rather drive three blocks than have to deal with career loiterers who throw rocks at their head while rapping, "Whoomp! There it is!"
I agree with scrapping the restrictions for developers. This is something that has been a topic of frequent discussion over at Greater Greater Washington, since it really doesn't makes sense to require spaces that people are never going to use, especially in areas of the city that are exceedingly walkable.
Having said that, there should absolutely be more parking where's its needed. The main problem, as far as I can tell, is that people are unwilling to pay for something under any circumstances when, to paraphrase George Costanza, you can get it free with a little effort. This is especially true in Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, U Street, etc. where there is loads of "free" parking on nights and weekends. You'll see people circling around Adams Morgan trying to find a spot on the street as the nearby garage sits virtually empty.
Ten out of ten! I rode Metro over to the dark side.
Gosh, I said the same thing about just calling it the Yellow line months ago.
Amen to alewis. There's plenty of parking, you just have to price it appropriately. And we shouldn't be forcing people to build parking if they don't want to.
As for parking: we live five blocks from DCUSA, and it's rare that we make a special trip in the car just for Target or Giant, but we'll often swing by on the way home if we're in the car already. Not long after DCUSA opened I managed to park in the lower level along with maybe five other cars, but that hasn't even been open since then and parking is never an issue there.
Locals and commuters are going to be arguing past each other on this point for years. DCUSA clearly was required to overbuild its parking, but it'd also be quite silly for a new office building downtown not to have parking. I've also seen reports that the parking in the condo-whoops-apartment buildings atop Columbia Heights Metro is much underused, largely because renters own fewer cars than owners, but also because the zoned parking requirement is out of line with the neighborhood. One size of parking requirement definitely doesn't fit all, and I'd hate to see one bad rule replaced by another.
Rather than scrapping parking requirements entirely, it may make more sense to set a parking requirement that varies based on the distance between the development and a Metro stop and/or a well-used bus line. DCUSA is right on top of the Metro, and has frequent bus service on 14th Street. Not many people need to use their cars to get there. Whole foods on P, or the Giant on 9th & P, or the Trader Joe's, on the other hand, are not so close to Metro, and their parking facilities are heavily used.
Parking minimums do not exist to protect apartment dwellers or visitors to the neighborhood. Period. They only exist to protect single-family-home owners who want to be able to park near their homes and don't want apartment buildings coming in and swamping their neighborhood with cars (parked ones that is. parking minimums guarantee that there will be more cars driving through a neighborhood).
If we really feel like protecting the people that these laws are meant to protect (and really, do we?), we'd do as Arlington does. Only give zone stickers to people who live in single family homes. That would drive home what this is all about.
3,452 out of 10!!! SUCK MY OIL FOOLS!!!!
9 out of 10, but I work in the arts so I may have an unfair advantage.
Frankly, I appreciate the DCUSA parking. I live in Cleveland Park and driving over take 5 mins as opposed to the half hour it would take me on the Metro. I use the lot when I'm in Columbia Heights for other things and don't want to bother driving in circles for street parking. I understand the costliness of putting a parking lots in DC, but I also agree with some people that there is already a shortage of street parking in places like my neighborhood.I doubt that the zoning should be done away with completely, but changed to suit the needs of the business and the neighborhood.
I second the DCUSA parking lot. Comes in really handy when you want to go to Commonwealth and gorge yourself on sweetbreads, headcheese, and blood pudding and don't think you can make it back home on the Metro in time to take a dump. Also, if you can't make it back to your care before you have to hurl your English bitter, there are lots of pylons in the garage where you can relieve yourself. If they provided a bidet, I'd never leave.
Parking in this city is a nightmare! I've long since learned that in the time it would take me to find a parking spot in the Whole Foods on P street, I could have driven to the Whole Foods in Alexandria and be half-way through my shopping. Parking is such a nightmare, that unless I can run my errands in my neighborhood, driving to VA will save me a lot of time and sanity.
The street parking in Columbia Heights is a total nightmare now that the Target is open. They stop ticketing at 6:30pm and lots of out-of-staters take valuable spots from residents. The reason there are empty spots in the apartment/condo buildings is that the buildings charge heinous monthly rates for parking. Sorry, it's not worth $200/month.
Since I live on the Hill, there is no way I would go to the Target in Columbia Heights if there wasn't parking available. I would just continue to go to the Target in Potomac Yard. As for a comparison between Nats games and going to the grocery store-big difference. You aren't carrying a case of diet coke and groceries when you leave the Nats game.
We really can't judge the parking situation at DCUSA yet, considering there is such a large amount of unleased retail space. For one thing, an additional grocery alone will increase the need for parking.
I disagree with the premise of only using a car to pick up large items or for major grocery shopping trips. I have lived in DC twice. The first time as a college student and then graduate student and new-to-the workplace employee. I didn't own a car then and sometimes it was a real pain in the ass--especially when it came to buying groceries. Lugging even a moderate amount of groceries home was a pain. I moved away for a number of years and returned a year ago. This time I have a car. It makes the routing shopping trips far easier. I regularly drive to DCUSA, the Giant in Columbia Heights and the Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan. Having readily available parking at those locations takes the stress out of those shopping trips and guess what? It also stops me from driving to Virginia to buy groceries or visit Target. That means the money I spend is spent in the District. It also keeps the sales tax I'm paying in DC rather than paying it to another municipality.
Sure, the DCUSA garage may be a little bigger than needed, but once the organic grocery store opens, I'm sure there will be more demand there. Does it really hurt to have a little extra parking where no one can see it anyway?
All these comments about "well it's better for the shoppers" to have parking are completely missing the point.
Who is better able to judge the needs of a store's shoppers, the developer or a bureaucratic code? The developers of these projects can decide for themselves how much parking they want to provide to ensure steady business. I repeat this law has nothing to do with the needs of the stores or their patrons, it is all about the single family home owners. They are the only ones "protected" by these laws.
Jonboydc said:
But that would make sense. I know the free market has a bad rep now with the trouble on Wall Street, but allowing developers to decide how much parking they need combined with performance parking and Reid's suggestion below seems like the common-sense answer.Reid said:
Then what would we have to bitch about?Developers "know best"? Really? (c'mon your in DC for gods sake) If it were up to the developers alone they would build it with no parking spaces and find some sucker businesses to come in and rent the spaces, and it would all implode after ten years or so (or some variance of this story- we have past evidence). The developers do not have the best interest of the hood in mind, they have the best interest of the investor who needs a mid-term profit off the real estate.
Which is a win-win for the developers and people who want a reduction in car use anyway.
As for parking passes only for home-dwellers, I say extend it to owners only. Tenants have to ride unicycles. The best idea would be to put a meter in front of each house and let the owners set the price and keep the money, like backyard oil wells for East Coasters.
tiny unicycles for some, parking garage bathroom breaks for others!
Our community actually wants two developers to get waivers to get out of the minimal parking agreement so we don't waste space in our neighborhood with an ugly parking lot.