Exploring Avenues To Fix Parking Mess

P arking in some sections of the District is a big fat headache.

Parking meters have developed a reputation for being unreliable. In cramped neighborhoods from Northwest Washington to Capitol Hill, longtime residents are upset with a visitor parking-permit system that is rife with abuse and allows out-of-city vehicles to take up parking spaces in front of their homes. And in an effort to reduce the number of cars in heavily populated areas, city officials reserve curbside parking spaces for private rental companies' car-sharing programs. The District Extra explores these three aspects of the city's parking problems.

New Hope For Broken Meters

As a business owner, Nevin Kelly becomes frustrated when potential customers drive away before entering his U Street NW art gallery because broken meters prevent turnover of two-hour spaces. As a driver, Kelly sometimes feeds 75 cents into a machine, only for it to register 25 cent's worth of parking time.

Kelly's experiences are not uncommon for many drivers in the District, but city officials hope the problems with meters soon will be. The District expects that a proposed contract to maintain 16,500 parking meters will bring new and more reliable ways to pay for street parking and lead to an increase in turnover of short-term spaces.

Last month, city officials announced that they were seeking bids from the private sector to run the program, which generates about $16 million a year. The city's last seven-year contract expired in September but was extended for five months. Officials expect to receive final bids on the new contract by Jan. 31.

Dan Tangherlini, director of the D.C. Department of Transportation, said he wants the new contractor to use technology improvements to reshape the approach to paying curbside fees. City officials will look at options including payment by phone with a credit card and centralized meter systems such as the "pay and display" machines used on some Georgetown blocks, where drivers place receipts in their dashboard windows.

Terry Lynch, head of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations and a frequent critic of the parking meters' reliability, compared the current meters to using manual typewriters instead of a "Microsoft computer." But he says city officials should monitor parking contractors more closely than they have in the past, because too many meters are broken for too long.

"Everything is in oversight and effectiveness. Are the taxpayers getting their money's worth?" Lynch said. "This contract is worth a lot of money."

D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz (R-At Large) said she also believes that too many meters remain broken, adding that it was only in recent years that the city hired its own monitor of the contract. She said she will press officials to ensure financial penalties are included in the new contract.

Tangherlini, who will become Metro's interim general manager next month, said city data indicate that 5 to 10 percent of meters are not operational each day.

"Do we have a problem? Yeah," Tangherlini acknowledged. But he said the city has made vast improvements in repairs and fee collection. He expects the bidding to yield a better deal for the city that will include more reliable systems, more stringent timetables for repairs and financial penalties for failure.

"Don't expect to drive into the city for a whole day's worth of work and expect to park on the curb, Tangherlini said. "It's short-term parking."