That's what it is like trying to park on the streets in Washington. Madness. Thankfully I only have to drive some place where I need street parking. I have plenty of it around my house. But it's the times I drive to my gym that it is just crazy.
This is especially true now that you have to pay at meters on Saturday. Saturdays used to be free but that all changed about a year ago. It takes $4 to get 2 hours on a meter. That's 7.5 minutes for each quarter. Needless to say I try and avoid parking at a meter when I go to the gym on Saturdays. The other problem is that if I take both classes (TRX and boot camp) that's over two hours.
The goal then is to find parking without meters. That's when the fun begins. The plethora of signs came be confusing. See if you can figure this one out. There is a no standing or parking sign. It says you can't do either of those from 9 am to 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. You would think on a Saturday you'd be able to park there. But right next to that sign is a no parking sign. So if you can't park there at all why would there be a no standing and parking sign right next to it.
There are also signs that say no parking entrance, Monday through Saturday. These are entrances to office buildings and apartments. I can understand on a Saturday why there would be no parking in front of an apartment building people might be moving in. (But then again you usually aren't able to move in through the front entrance.) Why would there be no parking in front of an office building? And these no parking entrance area take up a huge part of a block. In one block more than half of the street was no parking because of this.
I have found a place about four blocks from the gym where, if I leave early enough, I can find parking. Instead of driving around and looking for a place close to the gym I'm just going to head there first.
1 comment:
Jason I'm ready to pitch a tent in front of DC's DOT in protest of not only the completely unnecessary parking shortage in this city, but also the insanely restrictive rules for the parking that does exist, the mean-spirited nature of the ticket giving and the calculated revenue hungry system that has evolved.
- Zoned parking is great.. Until I'm across town in a different zone. Then it would seem there is no way to park for longer than two hours because there is effectively no unzoned parking that
- gotta love that the meter maids drive nearly silent hybrid vehicles with some kind of dual trunk mounted laser cameras. Wish some of our other services were provided with such high end gear... But this way the meter maids can efficiently and silently move down the block and nab you EVERY time.
- Entrances, handicapped spots, commercial vehicles, taxi stands, valet parking?!, zipcars and more.. They all get preferred parking and decrease the number of available spots. Lets not forget that on most streets, there's at least one, sometimes three car lengths of wasted space because of a no parking here to corner sign.
- the few garages that exist in residential areas charge in some cases $35 for a day of parking. That outpaces NYC!!!
If I learned of a resident protest, I'd be there with fists pumping. I'm a very mild mannered person but am tired of feeling like a criminal as I just go about my business in the city. If they are going to be this ruthless and not deal with the problem of how many wasted spaces there are and if the zoned spaces and metered spaces comprise 99.9% of spaces I can use... Then I say there should be one zone for the whole city. Resident parking period.
Thanks for writing. Glad I'm not the only one annoyed by this blatant money grab.
Terry - Capitol Hill
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