14th and Park Road, NW
From DPW:
“During the snow emergency that goes into effect Thursday, March 5, DCUSA neighbors may park in the garage for $1.00. Please follow these instructions:
Please get your ticket at the kiosk and park on P2 level. Keep the ticket in your car. Go to the parking office and give the staff your tag number and make, model, and color of your car.
When you are ready to leave the garage, return to the parking office, pay the $1 and leave as usual.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user John M
On the one hand:
“I’ve seen quite a few posts on Popville about little or no notice when posting emergency parking signs, but not much about enforcement. I recently moved between apartments within the district and found the enforcement to be essentially non-existent.
New rules have been put in place to help avoid ticketing and towing when the signs are not posted at least 72 hours. Now the signs must be posted in advance and verified by DDOT in order for vehicles parked in the reserved spaces to be ticketed and towed. Well, at least in theory…
During my recent move, I had my signs up on a Sunday in advance of a Friday morning move. The exact start time was 5 PM on a Thursday as I anticipated vehicles would be parked in the spaces regardless of hanging the signs for the moving truck. I was right.
At 10 PM the evening before my move, I called to request the four cars to be ticketed and towed. The next morning, I got up at 6 AM. No tickets. No towing. I called to follow-up on the status of my request and was informed that there is a bizarre Cinderella rule and my request whether addressed or not was closed at midnight and that I would need to file a new one.
Subsequent to filing a new request, I was informed that the city workers who can actually write tickets would not be clocking-in for work until 7 AM and that I should then allow 2 hours for them to arrive. In addition, the police are not able to write tickets now because they do not have access to know whether the signs were verified as hung at least 72 hours in advance.
In short, there is absolutely no way to enforce these signs for an early morning move and I essentially paid $55 in order to avoid a larger ticket for having a moving truck blocking the street. Not being able to park in the designated spaces also complicates the moving process and can increase the amount of time professional movers are on the clock (i.e., I pay more). I’m wondering if anyone else has a similar experience, especially with getting a refund. I’ve contacted DPW, Office of the Mayor, and two city council members with little progress.”
and on the other hand:
“I live on a block that manages to have a lot of resident turnover – brownstones with group houses and apt buildings. It follows that there are frequent moving trucks and no parking signs. A few between trees is to be expected and understood. Moving sucks and you don’t want to have to lift or move furniture and items any farther from your house than need be. But recently I have noticed people stretching out their private moving zones longer than the Middle East peace process. Just tonight someone thought it within their right to rope off almost 90 feet of public parking space to enable their move. That’s just shy of seven average car lengths, a full three more than I believe DDOT allows. I took down one of the signs in order to call the offending party, but I am curious if PoP folks have grumbled about this recently. My car has been towed several times when people throw the signs up a day or two, or even the night before they move, when they are supposed to have them up, what five days in advance? Just strikes me that this issue is ripe for debate. How many others are riled? Having a car in the city is a luxury, but the oversight over the moving sign industry is certainly lax, in my experience.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user Katie Yaeger Rotramel
“Dear PoPville,
DC has parking time limits in many areas, but the ParkMobile app keeps letting you pay. Unfortunately, this resulted in a ticket. Sketchy on my part, perhaps, but I do find it ridiculous that the city continued to take my money through the app only to ticket me. I protested the ticket but lost and will pay it, since I’m a decent citizen (I guess), but frankly I see a serious problem here. Either the app can alert you that you can’t stay in the zone, or a ticket is unfair — can’t have it both ways.
Perhaps others have had a similar experience.
Update:
I heard back from ParkMobile; I emailed them explaining the situation and this is what they had to say when explaining that the app keeps allowing you to extend your time and pay: “Our zones are configured in the way DC dictates and they haven’t asked us to restrict parking for this regulation.” It seems the app has the technology…but DC chooses not to use it, I’m sure for their benefit.”
“Dear PoPville,
I have been trying unsuccessfully to get a piece of machinery removed from my street for a few weeks. This is on 100 block of V Street, NW in Bloomingdale, a street that already has half of its parking gobbled up by the water project. The machine is from a contractor that is renovating a house, it’s not part of the water project. I’m not quite sure how this machine is helpful in a home renovation to begin with, but I have seen the contractors move it in the morning so they can park their cars directly in front of the building they’re working on. I don’t think they’ve even been working on the house for the last week or two. There are and never have been “no parking” permits posted.”
Update: DPW tells OP that DCRA handles construction equipment that park without permits because this backhoe has no tag nor a vin number.”
A reader sends:
“This guy parks here a lot. On John McCormack Dr. just north of Michigan Ave, right in front of Catholic U Metro. As you can see, when he/she is parked there (sitting in the car, btw, blatant “No Parking” on that whole side of the street) it is impossible for traffic to get through in both directions. It was all backed up behind me onto Michigan.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user BrennaLM
“Dear PoPville,
For two nights in a row, I’ve received a parking ticket for $50 while parked in front of my house for being parked less than 25 feet from a stop sign. (Mind you, these tickets are being issued at 3:00 am on a highly residential street in Truxton Circle where parking is only a problem on Sundays). A tow was requested. Both times I was parked within the white boxes which I assumed designate legal parking areas. Since my only parking option is street parking, I contacted DPW to get them to tell me how I could park “legally” so I can avoid getting the same ticket tonight. According to the woman on the phone, the white boxes were not painted by DPW (???) and mean nothing. One must be 25 feet from the stop sign even if the white box is painted closer. Is this real? 25 feet is quite a large distance and, being a life long DC resident, I would venture to suggest that cars on almost every street in the city could be ticketed for that same offense while being parked within the white boxes.
The woman further suggested that the only way I could get an additional explanation would be to adjudicate the tickets, but having gone through that process several times before (with mixed results), I can positively state that decisions are given without explanations.
As a side note, I also question why there is an officer ticketing my car at 3:00am for this type of offense on a residential street where parking is not an issue (note this is the 4th ticket we’ve gotten at similar hours from the same officer). Not exactly the best use of my taxpayer dollars, but perhaps that is the subject of another email.
Any advice you can give me would be greatly appreciated.”
From USA Today:
“Indianapolis Colts linebacker D’Qwell Lamar “Jackson, 31, was driving alone at 8 p.m. on the 1900 block of 12 Street N.W., a retail area in the downtown area, when he and another man got into an argument over a [parking] space, said Metropolitan Police spokesman officer Araz Alali. The altercation became physical when Jackson hit the man in the head, Alali said.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user BrennaLM
“Dear PoPville,
DC Parking Enforcement — Two citations, same infraction, less than 1 hour?
I’m curious if someone can enlighten me as to the law/policy on this; I parked at a meter (which, admittedly, I read the fine print incorrectly and did not feed it–not denying that I’m at fault for one of the citations), and I received two citations for the expired meter within a less than one hour period.
The kicker is that I only found one citation on my windshield, and I didn’t learn about the second ticket until I logged online to pay the first one.. I’ve contested the second ticket, but anyone have any experience as to whether or not I’ll be on the hook for it? The meter maid incorrectly recorded my location as well (first ticket, on the 1200 block; second on the 1300 block–my car didn’t move).
Any input appreciated.”
Photo by PoPville flickr user Erin
“Dear PoPville,
I have several friends who have recently received tickets from the city that strike me as utterly onerous. The gist of it is that the city has observed their cars parked in DC frequently during non-work hours, and they suspect them of being residents of the district while keeping their cars registered elsewhere. The ticketed person’s only recourse to avoid repeated ticketing and ultimately a boot is to report to DC DMV during business hours to prove that they our residents of another state! There are soooo many legitimate reasons why out-of-state residents are in the district regularly off hours. One of them was my boyfriend. Yeah, he slept over. Pretty regularly. Others are pals of mine with a healthy social life who come visit all the time. Sometimes they crash, because hey, it’s better than driving drunk, right? One of them works all the way out in Warrenton during the day, and taking time off to come all the way to DC to “prove” he doesn’t live here was no small burden. Worse yet? The DMV didn’t even accept his first attempt. Apparently, a current electric bill and lease were not adequate???
It just seems like a shakedown, and they’ve got folks over a barrel. It’s practically mafia behavior. Any thoughts on this? Ways to get the city to stop harassing my friends and visitors? The city should be happy that these folks are spending their hard-earned money here in the district without consuming any of our services!”
“Dear PoPville,
On November 3rd, I got a ticket for parking illegally during street cleaning. Yes, November 3rd — after street cleaning was supposedly over on October 31. It was so odd that a very kind neighbor left a note on my car reminding me not to pay the ticket. So I contested the ticket on the grounds that street cleaning ends on October 31 but didn’t step out to take a picture of the sign because I figured all the signs across the city say the same thing and if the hearing examiner has ever parked in DC he or she would recognize the error.
I was wrong. Today I received a letter stating that my evidence is insufficient and I am liable for the ticket. Has anyone else encountered this? What kind of evidence can I produce that’s more substantive than their own website: http://dpw.dc.gov/page/street-and-alley-cleaning ? Are there other street cleaning dates that I’m unaware of and supersede the one that’s posted?”