DC Drivers Spend Almost Three Days A Year Parking: Report

WASHINGTON, DC—If you feel like you spend a lot of time and money parking in DC, you're not wrong.

DC drivers spend 65 hours a year, an average of nine and a half minutes during every single trip, looking for somewhere to park, according to the survey by Inrix, a global company that provides parking and traffic data. That's enough to land DC at No. 4 on the survey's list of cities where finding parking can be a chore.

Among American cities, DC only ranked behind New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. But DC's parking costs also trump most of the top 10 cities in terms of downtown two-hour parking costs. DC drivers shell out $18, which is steep compared to Los Angeles ($14), San Francisco ($12), Seattle ($10), Detroit ($9), Atlanta ($6) and Dallas ($6).

New York ranked No. 1 on the list, with motorists there spending a whopping 107 hours — that's roughly 4 1/2 days — hunting down parking spots each year.

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The top 10 cities for hours spent on parking are:

1. New York: 107 hours/year
2. Los Angeles: 85 hours/year
3. San Francisco: 83 hours/year
4. Washington, DC: 65 hours/year
   
5. Seattle: 58 hours/year
6. Chicago: 56 hours/year
7. Boston: 53 hours/year
8. Atlanta: 50 hours/year
9. Dallas: 48 hours/year
10. Detroit: 35 hours/year

According to the survey, the extra time spent jockeying for a parking spot costs DC drivers $1,367 a year. Citywide, that amounts to $329 million in lost time, Inrix says.

"Americans spend an incredible $72.7 billion searching for the elusive parking spot," said Bob Pishue, senior economist at INRIX. "Our country’s parking pain has widespread impact – on drivers, cities, the economy and the environment. Thankfully, it’s a problem that can be improved through education, technology and partnerships."

Nationwide, the problem isn't as severe, although the numbers can still be sobering. The average time spent looking for parking is 17 hours per year, and drivers spend about $345 searching for a space.

Inrix's survey of 6,000 drivers in 10 U.S. cities also revealed that lots of motorists make their decisions on where to go, or not go, based on parking.

A full 63 percent said they avoided driving to certain destinations because of the challenge finding parking there. Out of all respondents, 39 percent said they avoided certain shopping destinations because of parking, 27 percent said they avoided airports, 26 percent skipped leisure or sports activities and 21 percent opted out of commuting to work. Twenty percent of respondents even said they avoided driving to a doctor's office or hospital because of parking.

According to the survey, all that time and money being sucked up by parking is taking a toll on drivers. Almost two-thirds of respondents (61 percent) said they've felt stressed out trying to find parking. Nearly half (42 percent) said they'd missed an appointment because of it and more than one in three (34 percent) said they'd abandoned a trip they'd already started due to parking problems.

Read the full results of the Inrix survey here.

Image via Gary McCabe/Flickr, used under Creative Commons