Cities rethinking '50s-era parking standards

Some cities have switched directions altogether, replacing the minimum requirement with a cap on the maximum allowable number of parking spaces. London and San Francisco began making the shift decades ago. San Francisco is currently considering extending the new approach to more neighborhoods.

Activists say too much parking is required even in New York City, particularly outside Manhattan. In August, a coalition of environmental groups said existing parking minimums would boost traffic and cancel out much of the expected improvements from the city's green initiatives.

The D.C. proposal would eliminate minimum parking requirements with some exceptions. Caps on parking would also be established.

In old D.C. neighborhoods like Capitol Hill and Georgetown, where parking is scarce, opponents of the change fear that if new homes don't provide off-street spots, competition for on-street parking will worsen.

Advocate: Create incentives not to drive
Ken Jarboe, a neighborhood leader from Capitol Hill, said the way to reduce traffic is to continue improving the transit system and to create incentives for people not to drive.

"Simply saying, 'Let's make it more painful to park' — it doesn't get you where you want to be," Jarboe said.

But Harriet Tregoning, director of the D.C. Planning Department, said the city is already easy to navigate without a car. Nine out of 10 residents live within a quarter-mile of transit, and, according to census data, 12 percent of Washingtonians walk to work, Tregoning noted. More than a third of D.C. households don't have a car.

The Specks say they haven't regretted their decision to go car-free even after the birth of their son, Milo, in June. They walk to shops and parks in their neighborhood, and the baby's pediatrician is a short bus ride away. When needed, they can rent vehicles from Zipcar, a car-sharing service.

Adding a garage and a driveway to their house would have forced them to sacrifice the equivalent of a bedroom and their garden. They decided it was worth spending the time to get a variance, especially since they were applying for several other zoning waivers at the same time.

For a developer, however, seeking a variance may not be an option.

"If you're working off borrowed money, you're not going to wait nine months," Jeff Speck said.

As a result, developers of some recent D.C. projects have ended up with more parking than actually gets used, Tregoning said.

"We're forcing people to invest in spaces for automobiles rather than in spaces for people," she said. "There's no way to recover that use."

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