Speak Out: Resident-Only Parking in Georgetown

Parking in Georgetown is like the dull pain of a nascient headache, it makes life uncomfortable and can lead to irritability. Nary a topic — be it the or — escapes the scrutiny of the parking issue.

Whether you are a resident of 20 years or a young professional new to the neighborhood, parking and the non-residents who take up spaces on residential streets are a sore point.

In recent years, the Logan Circle neighborhood has begun to feel Georgetown's pain, as the 14th Street restaurant and bar corridor exploded. As the neighborhood gained cache, it also gained cars from outside of the neighborhood.

Currently, the residential parking zones in Georgetown and Logan Circle allow zoned permit holders to park on the street indefinitely, but those cars without permits are limited to two hours. The snag comes when the permit limitations end (in some areas at 6:30 p.m. in others at 9:30 p.m.). Then diners, with let's say an 8 p.m. dinner reservation, could (and do) park on neighborhood streets and even leave their car there until the next morning without fear of getting a ticket.

This week, one Logan Circle Advisory Neighborhood Commission approved a plan, proposed by Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans, to create more restrictive parking permit rules to protect residents, according to DCist.

The new rules would allow certain blocks to opt-in to RPP-only parking. As DCist explains:

Evans' pilot program is modeled on enhanced residential parking permit schemes that have been tried in other pockets of the city, including Columbia Heights and near Nationals Park. On streets affected by those parking rules, one side of the block is open only to permit holders and their guests while the other allows two-hour time limits for other cars except those with permits (which can stay longer).

There are already talks . An informal working group of stakeholders have been meeting with the District Department of Transportation to discuss the possibility of bringing performance-based parking to Georgetown.

Performance-based parking is a tool to protect residential parking, support businesses by encouraging space turnover and to promote alternative forms of transportation.

DDOT uses a combination of policies in a variety of ways to achieve these goals. Expanded Residential Permit Parking plans, like the pilot in Logan Circle, are among those tools.

What do you think? Would you want to see more restrictive Residential Permit Parking in Georgetown? What is your biggest parking headache? Speak Out in the comments.