Increasing enforcement efforts appear to be paying off, literally, for Arlington County in the form of increased parking-meter compliance.
Still, fewer than half of all occupied metered spots in the county are being paid for, the figures confirm.
New data from August shows that motorists were in compliance at 42% of occupied spaces that month, Melissa McMahon, parking and curbside manager for the Department of Environmental Services, told members of the Commission on Aging at an Oct. 20 meeting.
McMahon presented the August figure as “a tiny tick up” from previous months. But it is the first time in at least several years that the rate has been above 40%.
McMahon said she believes more tickets are helping to convince parkers to feed their meters.
“Police have been working hard on staffing up and increasing enforcement activities,” she said. “So the hope is we’ll continue to see that [rate] tick up.”
The cost of Arlington parking meters ranges from 75 cents to $4.75 per hour. The three highest tiers — $4, $4.25 and $4.75 — have higher than average compliance rates and “if anything, the cheaper priced areas have some of the lowest compliance,” McMahon said.
The reason could be that the most expensive meters are located in high-traffic urban areas with significant police and parking-enforcement visibility. The lower-priced meters are frequently found in locations off the beaten path.
As part of an ongoing performance-parking pilot program, county staff are working to analyze 14.5 million separate “parking sessions” to determine trends since the effort began in 2023.
In early 2026, County Board members will likely be asked to extend the pilot program at least through that year. The project, funded by the Virginia Department of Transportation, is currently slated to expire in March.
Residents and others who park in Arlington can provide feedback to the county government via an online response form.
About 4,500 of the county’s metered spaces are part of the performance-parking pilot. The effort is concentrated in the Rosslyn-Ballston and Richmond Highway corridors.
As part of the pilot program, rates for individual spaces can be adjusted up or down by county officials not more than quarterly, depending on usage. There is no real-time change depending on use during any given day.
Although the cost for some metered spaces has more than doubled as part of the program, county officials say their efforts are not a money-making operation. The fiscal year 2026 budget, adopted in the spring, anticipates $11.3 million in parking-meter revenue, up 15% from FY 2025.
So far, the higher rates have not dented the amount of parking in most areas of the pilot program, county staff say. But they represent is a tool to manage congestion in an increasingly urbanized environment, staff and advocates say.
At the Commission on Aging meeting, concerns were raised about the impact of increased meter rates on seniors and people with disabilities. While the performance-parking initiative resulted in increased prices for general-availability spaces in congested areas, the rates for Americans with Disabilities Act-restricted meters did not increase past the previous high of $1.75 per hour, McMahon said.
