Residents Say Officials Are Not Sharing Parking, Traffic Plans
By Daniel LeDuc
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 10, 2007
Opening Day is less than four months away, and residents near the Nationals' new ballpark are finding themselves less excited about hot dogs and first pitches than they are anxious about clogged streets and a crush of fans in their neighborhoods.
Congestion is already a problem south of Capitol Hill on the streets near the $611 million ballpark in Southeast Washington. City officials and Nationals executives have been working on plans for new traffic patterns and parking for about 5,000 cars expected at most games.
But neighborhood activists said few details about those plans have been made public. And what they have heard has made them more concerned as they watch the mammoth stadium rise above the skyline.
"Our area is going to be inundated," said Julia Olson, a Ward 6 advisory neighborhood commissioner. "They've been really closemouthed on this one."
Late last month, city officials and team representatives met with community leaders for the first time since July, when a proposed traffic plan was unveiled. The meeting left neighbors with plenty of unanswered questions.
"Opening Day is coming up," said Andy Litsky, another Ward 6 advisory neighborhood commissioner. "My concern is that this will be dragged out to the very last moment."
Parking and congestion have been concerns for residents, fans, city officials and Nationals executives since the ballpark's location was finalized two years ago. There is no easy route for bringing a large volume of cars into the neighborhood. Getting fans to and from the stadium as smoothly as possible without antagonizing neighbors is seen as critical to the ballpark's success.
"I don't know how they're really going to make it work," said Bill Phillips, vice president of the Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and Professionals. "I don't know if there are any good answers that are going to make everybody happy. I do think the first five to 10 games are going to be awful."
Litsky predicted "controlled chaos."
Parking restrictions are proposed for neighborhood streets similar to the rules in place around RFK Stadium during baseball games and other events.
Although street parking would be limited to residents, Litsky said he is worried that fans will go hunting on side streets anyway.
"People are what people are," he said. "They'll always assume they can find a spot, and that just isn't going to happen."
Nationals President Stan Kasten has urged fans repeatedly to treat the ballpark as they would Fenway Park in Boston or Yankee Stadium in the Bronx: city stadiums best reached by public transportation.
But transportation planners expect only about half of the expected fans to take Metro, which has promised expanded service to the Navy Yard stop, the closest to the ballpark.
Planners' estimates for the number of cars headed to the ballpark for each game range from 5,000 to 9,000.
The D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission is obligated to provide 1,225 parking spaces, which will be in three garages attached to the ballpark that are under construction.
It is up to the Nationals to find the rest. Several lots in the area have been rezoned for parking, but team officials have not announced where they intend to put fans' cars. They have promised that anyone with a full or partial season ticket will be able to purchase parking nearby.
Not knowing the parking sites has left neighbors concerned that they can't predict which streets will be most congested or whether they will be satisfied with the team's plans.
D.C. Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) is asking for oversight hearings. He wants to ensure that residents are part of developing the traffic and parking plans that city experts, and especially the team, are working on.
"I don't know how much energy or time they are putting in . . . to communicating with the neighborhood," Wells said of the Nationals.
Gregory McCarthy, the Nationals' director for the ballpark district, said the team will prepare a traffic management plan that will include the final or nearly final details about all these issues.
"We're going to continue our dialogue with the neighborhood up to Opening Day and permanently thereafter," said McCarthy, who attended the meeting with neighbors.
Still, communication coordination has been an issue.
When the Nationals announced in October that all season ticket holders would be assured parking, the team also said that fans could park for free at RFK. That caught city officials off-guard. Although negotiations had been underway, the deal was not concluded -- and still isn't.
The sports commission's chief executive, Gregory O'Dell, said he expected no hitches would occur in completing the plan for RFK.
But how popular the free parking will be remains to be seen because it will require fans to ride buses to and from the ballpark. And residents said they are leery because they have yet to hear what route the buses will take.
As for keeping residents better apprised of traffic and parking planning, O'Dell said the sports commission was pledging to meet with neighbors at least once a month.
"We don't want the community feeling they're in the dark," he said.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.