Dear PoPville – “DC Parking Enforcement Needs a Ticket”

“Dear PoPville,

The attached picture is of a DC Parking Enforcement vehicle parked in one of the 4 parking spots zoned for 15 minute drop off in front of the Department of Energy Daycare facility. No officer in the car, no officer anywhere to be seen- 8:55 am, the height of the drop-off rush. Now, I wouldn’t be quite so incensed by this if the DC Parking staff did anything to make the parents’ drop-off easier in general.

However, in the two years that I have been taking my kid to this facility, I have never seen a Parking Officer anywhere in the vicinity of this zone during the peak drop-off and pick up times for daycare. This results in, on average, 4 mornings a week having at least one and sometime as many as three of the spots occupied by various jackasses who can’t read signs and are doing anything but dropping off kids. I’ve seen people taking naps, a 2 seater Ferrari, and more of those damn car-share cars than I can count. This results in harried parents lining up 5 cars deep waiting for a spot to open up-often as long as 20 minutes. I have never once seen a ticket on any of these cars.

However, Parking Enforcement manages to somehow nail parents who forget to pay the meter. Why we need to pay the meter when we have parking permits for those spaces is another mystery. It’s gotten so bad that I have taken to simply double parking beside whatever moron is illegally parked with my hazards on and blocking them in while I run my kid inside. This hasn’t given me a whole lot of satisfaction as usually whoever is parked there is off doing whatever idiots do and I am out of there in 3 minutes flat.

If this hadn’t been a particularly unusual morning with multiple open spots, I would have most certainly blocked that Parking Enforcement car in. They could do such a service at this location by simply being around the area during peak hours and moving folks along. It would work out great for them- they could patrol the entire L’Enfant area and hand out dozens of tickets in all the spaces around that area while swinging by the reserved spots every 10 minutes or so to keep the area clear for parents. I have long given up expecting logic and public service from the DC government.”