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Improving Parking for Residents in Our Neighborhood

10/26/2014

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Parking remains a serious concern of residents in our neighborhood, as it has been for well over a decade. Our residential neighborhood has a high demand for parking from residents, visitors and business patrons; balancing those needs is a key role for ANC Commissioners and something that I have led for nearly two years.

Earlier this year I established (and chair) the Transportation and Public Infrastructure Committee within the Dupont Circle ANC – something that has never existed before – to build consensus on neighborhood transportation issues and act to improve them. This isn’t just platitudes or guesses about what will work and what won’t, this is real conversation with a broad group of stakeholders and the city to find real, implementable solutions for our neighborhood. We have real goals and you can read our meeting minutes to get a sense of the work we’re accomplishing.

The ANC has identified four problem areas related to parking in our neighborhood. They include residential parking, visitor parking, business customer parking, and underutilized space. As recently as August we brought in the DDOT citywide parking manager, Evian Patterson, to discuss the feasibility of options to address these issues. We have a list of feasible options that fit into the recently released DDOT curbside management study. The ANC is committed to pilot testing innovative parking solutions in our neighborhood and DDOT has committed to reaching out to us first.

Separately, I've begun a conversation with commissioners from other Ward 2 ANCs and Jack Evans' office on how changes to parking policies in Dupont could impact their neighborhoods positively and negatively. A ward-wide and city-wide solution is the goal, but we shouldn't hesitate to pilot test innovative parking policies in Dupont. 

Why not just reserve all residential streets for residential parking?

Enhanced residential parking restrictions have been tested in many parts of the city with limited success. Our own test case, Caroline Street, has found more available residential parking but extremely limited visitor parking for when friends come over for dinner or repairs are needed on a home. Because of this, DDOT is no longer accepting petitions for enhanced parking restrictions until a city-wide plan is developed. They found that changing one block’s parking policies just pushes the problem down another block. As you can see, there is no silver bullet, but there are a lot of great ideas to implement together.

ANCs have such a wide area of responsibility and opportunity for positive impact. We depend on great ideas coming from our neighbors and then working with each of you and the city to implement them. If you have thoughts or ideas to address parking concerns, please contact me or join our committee! We would love to see you on the fourth Wednesday of the month at 7pm at the Dupont Circle Resource Center.  

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    Welcome! This site serves as a resource for residents of ANC 2B09 in U Street and Dupont Circle. I provide updates with information on upcoming meetings, events in the neighborhood, and discussion topics. 

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