The Goodspeed Update

Urban neighborhoods across America have a “parking problem.” Free curb spaces are hard to come by during busy times, especially in commercial areas. Because curb spaces are so much cheaper than garages, drivers continue to cruise for spaces. That’s the reason one of the major recommendations of parking reformers like Donald Shoup is raise the […]

The weekly newsletter circulated by my representative on the D.C. Council, Jack Evans, contains this personal plea for community members to attend an upcoming zoning hearing regarding a mixed-use redevelopment of the O Street Market:
O Street Market needs support from residents
The DC Zoning Commission will hold a Public Hearing on the O Street Market project […]

For decades, zoning codes in American cities have required new buildings to provide a minimum number of parking spaces. The Washington, D.C. region is no exception, and our zoning codes contain a hodgepodge of requirements resulting in legally mandated parking spaces from Clarksburg to Springfield. A new book causing waves in the urban planning profession has put these requirements in the spotlight, arguing they have resulted in nothing less than a total “planning disaster” for American cities.

Read more to find out why Professor Shoup thinks our parking policies have “debased” our cities, what he thinks we should do about it, and how D.C. officials are re-thinking their parking policies.

Since my original post on the topic way back in 2006, the D.C. urban and real estate blogosphere has evolved somewhat. However, only recently were there enough changes to convince me the topic deserved to be revisited.

Over $2 million has already been earmarked to convert this dreary tar triangle into a memorial and park for a famous former D.C. resident. Read more to find out the technicalities holding it up, the responses of my elected officials to the problem, and who you can write to demanding action.

Twelve years after Congressional approval and with over $80 million raised, the foundation spearheading a memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the National Mall has entered the final phase before construction: selecting materials, choosing an artist for the King sculpture, and winning approval of a final design from picky federal officials. On this Martin Luther King Day find out why the stone and sculptor selected are Chinese, and what late-breaking design changes have irked the U.S. Fine Arts Commission.

After completing my recent analysis of WMATA’s Metrorail fare increase, I decided to do some more research to better put the fares in a national context, finding D.C. Metro riders pay some of the highest subway fares in the nation. I then did a side-by-side comparison with San Francisco’s BART, considered a sister system to the D.C. Metro. The analysis of BART fares from a downtown San Francisco station shows that Bay-area suburban commuters enjoy even cheaper per-mile fares than their D.C. counterparts.