Photo by Dave Adams

Logan Circle residents embraced, with a few questions, a pilot program being proposed by the office of Councilmember Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) that would apply more restrictive parking rules to the neighborhood.

At a meeting Wednesday night of advisory neighborhood commission 2F, Sherri Kimbel, Evans’ constituent services director, outlined a program that would expand residential parking permit hours to be in effect around the clock on blocks where the $35 stickers are required.

Evans’ pilot program is modeled on enhanced residential parking permit schemes that have been tried in other pockets of the city, including Columbia Heights and near Nationals Park. On streets affected by those parking rules, one side of the block is open only to permit holders and their guests while the other allows two-hour time limits for other cars except those with permits (which can stay longer).

Currently, parking permit hours end mid-evening, effectively meaning that if a driver without a permit parks with less than two hours remaning before permit hours end, he or she can effectively leave find free overnight parking. Under the system being suggested, those hours might also be extended to midnight, further cutting down on the number of non-residents who take up valuable parking.

The push to change the parking rules in ANC 2F is driven in large part by the continually growing amount of visitors to Logan Circle and the 14th Street NW strip of bars and restaurants. But with too many people driving in from other parts of the city or from the suburbs and parking on residential streets, neighbors say while this might be good for business, it makes it quite difficult to find a parking spot when coming home from work.

“We want people to come to the neighborhood,” Kimbel said. “But we don’t want to provide free parking.”

Under the ANC 2F program, individual blocks would have the option of opting out. In Ward 1, 24-hour permit parking is being rolled out neighborhood-by-neighborhood basis. Greater Greater Washington editor David Alpert noted in a Wednesday post that ANC 1D, which encompasses Mount Pleasant, declined the new parking hours out of concerns the more restrictive scheme would impact the businesses that line Mount Pleasant Street NW.

Alpert also brought up another interesting point, one that he repeated at the ANC 2F meeting: The residential parking zones, drawn according to the ward map, are far too big. Rather than sell ward-wide stickers that allow Kalorama and Georgetown residents to ditch their cars in Logan Circle and enjoy easier access to the Green Line for commuting purposes, Alpert posited, parking permit zones should be drawn closer to ANC borders.

Still, it was simple noise and crowd concerns that had the ANC members embrace Evans’ pilot program. Charles Reed, commissioner for 2F01, said, “We don’t want to become another Adams Morgan.”

The commission voted to endorse the program provided the city gives a window of 60 to 90 days to introduce it to residents and give blocks the option of declining the new parking rules. Kimbel said the amount of time it would take the District Department of Transportation to install signs notifying drivers of the new rules would easily be that long.