Hashing Out Parking in Georgetown, Burleith

Depending on where you live Georgetown parking is either just fine the way it is, or it is the bane of your existence and a constant headache.

It is this paradox that a working group and the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is trying to sort out.

At a public meeting Wednesday, Angelo Rao and Damon Harvey from DDOT along with several representative from the parking working group held break-out sessions to get to the bottom of parking concerns. The goal was to identify priorities and come up with proposed solutions.

"We are trying to do the best for the community on very tough issues,” said Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner and parking working group member Ron Lewis.

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The group of 60 or so residents split into groups to talk about residential parking, parking in the business corridors and a potpourri of other issues, including visitor parking passes.

In the residential parking group, the complexities were evident from the get-go.

Several residents said they would be in favor of residential parking zone that was exclusive to Georgetown or ANC2E, which also covers Burleith.

But another residents said he likes have the Ward 2-wide parking ability, to drive to the Foggy Bottom Metro for instance.

One woman who lives on the 1600 block of 29th Street said she would like parking to remain just as it is. She and her neighbors have ample parking and do not want to do anything to change that.

But another resident who lives just off of Wisconsin Avenue on 33rd Street said he wants to see changes, including possibly adding metered parking on residential streets. Georgetown residents would not have to pay, but he believed charging others to park there would increase turn over.

Yet another neighbor was opposed to the idea of having metered spaces on residential streets at all, calling it unwelcoming for guests. 

Then there is the issue of visitor parking passes. There are some who would like to have the visitor parking passes used elsewhere in the city. One pass is mailed to each home and can be used by one guest vehicle at a time. They are good for a year.

But others worry that people would abuse the visitor passes and they prefer to continue getting them from the police station as is currently required. 

The list goes on and on.

The groups presented their priorities and proposals to the entire meeting.

"As we think this thing through—and this is a pilot and it's flexible—we just have to be aware that when changes are made in one block, we can adapt it very easily to meet the concerns of the next one," ANC Commissioner and parking working group member Ed Solomon explained.

Next the working group will work to synthesize those goals and then try to develop a plan that might be feasible based on those goals.

There was even some consternation over the make-up of the parking working group: Many of members live in the East village or Burleith, where parking is more constricted.

Lewis said they would try to find parity to have people from both Georgetown's East and West village creating the draft parking plan.

"We don't want this to turn into an East versus West thing," ANC Commissioner and parking working group member Bill Starrels told Patch later.

Starrels said he expects this to be a "thorough but slow process" at the core of which is respect for all of the opinions they heard at the meeting Wednesday.

The working group offered to have a draft plan for public comment in the next three or four months. There will likely be a public meeting and the ANC would weigh in on any plan before it is implemented.

And if that plan or pilot is not satisfactory? Well, then they will keep working on it.

"Flexibility is the key to this," DDOT's Rao said.

What do you think about the concerns residents brought up? Do you have ideas for solutions? Put them in the comments below!