Over the winter, crews narrowed the portion of Joyce Street from 15th Street to 16th Street. A sidewalk was added to the side of the road facing Virginia Highlands Park, and the width of the street was reduced from 40 feet to about 35 feet.
The changes were intended as traffic calming measures. Narrower streets, the county says, encourage drivers to slow down.
The county’s streets bureau, responding to a complaint from a trash collector, determined that a curvy, two-block stretch of North Edgewood Street is too narrow. With cars parked on either side, firefighters brought in to test the width did not have enough room to open the bins on either side of their fire engine.
Acting upon the results of the test, the streets bureau sent notice to residents that they were planning on restricting parking to one side of the street. But residents fought back and, this weekend, seemed to get some cover from the county board.
The spaces, located on the ground floor of an adjacent parking garage, are often full, leading to complaints to Harris Teeter management. Even though the spaces are reserved for grocery customers and limited to one hour, an employee tells us that drivers often flout the rules by parking in the spaces and heading to other stores.
The new meters are expected to “go live” on Saturday. Much like the meters at the Harris Teeter in Pentagon City, the Shirlington meters will have a button that will give drivers an hour of free parking. Coins will not be accepted.
A reader, Christine, wrote in to ask about a parking ticket she recently received in Courthouse. Here’s her story:
I’m writing because I’d like to find out if any of your other readers have had the same issue I ran into last week. I received a $50 parking ticket for pulling front-end first into an angled parking space in Courthouse. These are the spots right next to the big AMC lot (cannot remember what street). Apparently the parking spaces were “Back-in Only”, which I failed to notice (admittedly this is my own fault). What I don’t understand is why Arlington is charging me $50 for pulling into a spot facing the wrong direction?! It’s not as if I was parking in a zone I didn’t have a permit for, or parked over a line taking up two spaces. It also seems like a pretty easy mistake to make, considering the street is 2-way and there is only parking on one side.
Parking can be a frustrating thing. If parking is sparse, finding that one parking spot can turn into a competition. And if you park in the wrong spot, getting towed is certainly not very fun.
Should you should find yourself in such a situation, however, you should remain calm. Otherwise, if you lose your cool, you could wind up in handcuffs.
County No Longer Offering iParks — The company that makes the iPark electronic parking pass has stopped manufacturing the device due to financial problems. That has prompted Arlington County to stop selling iParks, pending the company’s effort to stay in business. More from TBD.
O’Leary, Morroy Announce Reelection Bid — Arlington County Treasurer Frank O’Leary and Commissioner of Revenue Ingrid Morroy, both Democrats, announced their bids for reelection at last night’s Arlington County Democratic Committee meeting. See the video from Blue Virginia.
Earlier this week we reported that some residents were upset with loophole in Arlington’s parking code that allows commercial trucks to park for extended periods of time in front of schools, libraries and other county properties.
But trucks aren’t the only hulking masses taking up space on the side of local roads. Here’s what one peeved resident wrote us this morning:
Per Arlington County code, boats, boat trailers and commercial vehicles (defined by Virginia law as a vehicle over 12,000 pounds) are prohibited from parking on the side of a street next to property zoned for residential use — except when unloading/loading or performing services. Motor homes and camping trailers are prohibited from parking in a residential zone for a period of more than five consecutive days.
But as many drivers of such vehicles have figured out, the law does not apply to the sides of streets abutting property zoned as “special” — which includes schools, libraries, community centers, parks and other county-owned property. As a result, the curbs next to some county properties have become a free parking lot of sorts for big trucks.
Likewise, while trash collection and some bus service will be operational on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, but just about everything else county-related — including libraries, courts and schools — will be closed.
The good news: parking meters will not be enforced on Dec. 24, 25, 31 and Jan. 1. Happy holidays, indeed.
Despite worries about long lines and delays, catching a flight at Reagan National Airport was a relative breeze this morning. Parking at the Clarendon Whole Foods, on the other hand, is a disaster zone.
The heavy volume of shoppers stocking up for Thanksgiving dinner is overwhelming the five (count ’em) neon-vested parking attendants who are currently working the lot.
Greater Greater Washington’s Michael Perkins has an interesting thesis. He says that instead of shutting down at 6:00 p.m., parking meters in Arlington should run after dark in neighborhoods like Clarendon, Crystal City and Rosslyn.
Perkins says such a move would free up more street parking in Arlington’s business districts at night. It would also encourage more people to take transit, he says.
The company’s drivers will watch over restricted parking spaces and wait for some unfortunate schmo to park there and walk off the owner’s property, at which point they snatch the car and drive off. They do this at the Four Mile Run branch of the Virginia DMV, at the Westmont Shopping Center on Columbia Pike, and elsewhere around Arlington. Needless to say, it has not won them many friends.
They have earned themselves a steady stream of hate on Yelp. They have been the subject of a not-safe-for-work screed by a prominent local blogger. And they’re often involved in disputes that have to be settled by police.
