Waterfront Plan Work Group Tackles Parking Issues

As the city considers plans to redevelop its waterfront, it should make every effort to entice visitors to parking garages, take public transportation and consider other means to keep large trucks from blocking roadways, according to the Waterfront Plan Work Group.

At a meeting last week in the City Council workroom, the group tackled the prickly parking issue in Old Town.

“We’re primarily looking at access,” said urban planner Elliot Rhodeside. “How are people going to use the activities? We’re not just looking at cars. How are people getting there? Bikes? Water taxis?”

Members discussed whether a plan should keep drivers away from the most congested parts of Old Town.

Planning and Zoning Director Faroll Hamer told the group that the city could work to make parking outside of the core area more desirable and accessible through steps like pricing differentials, shuttle and trolley service, added signage and technology.

Deputy Director Karl Moritz said higher meter fees might be one way to encourage visitors to park in garages. His department also has been studying how far people are willing to walk to enjoy activities and current analyses use four blocks although research says up to a half-mile is plausible.

He said that even with the hotel industry standard of one parking space per room, Old Town currently has more parking spaces than needed. However, new developers would be required to offer underground parking.

“Today there isn’t any parking problem?,” Old Town Civic Association representative David Olinger asked.

“I do want to be clear there are parking issues,” Moritz said. “The resolution of the parking issue is not just to add more supply. We have supply. We do not have people going into garages. They’re circling.”

He added that the parking component of the waterfront plan hopes to address that and that up to 30% of the current traffic congestion is caused by drivers circling blocks looking for street parking.

There was also discussion about better bus service and pedestrian safety. Group member Bob Wood, a business owner, suggested the Braddock Metro Station could be better incorporated into the plan to bring visitors to the waterfront.

Mindy Lyle of Hayley and Aldrich asked if the city has looked at bike sharing programs at Metro stations. Additionally, several members discussed that bicyclists used to fasten a bike lock around a parking meter, which is much harder to do with new multi-space meters.

Olinger also suggested better directing bicyclists not stopping in Old Town away from Union Street toward Royal Street, where there is access to the Mount Vernon Trail. He noted that when he bikes on Union Street “it’s dangerous” due to traffic congestion.

“We need to encourage biking in more parts of the city,” Rhodeside said. “We need to make streets friendlier for bikers, pedestrians and other transit as well as cars. I think to restrict bikes in the city that’s going backward rather than forward.”

Bert Ely, who participated in the meeting via conference call, asked if the city would offer stronger police enforcement since bikers tend to ignore stop signs, to which Nate Macek replied: “That’s a policing issue, not a comprehensive planning issue.”

Olinger also touched on tour buses, which are loud and often block the neighborhood’s narrow streets.

“Tour buses – it’s an old subject…18-wheel trucks in the morning on Union Street is not plausible,” he said. Lyle suggested Old Town follow the lead of some other historic districts that require a smaller delivery truck.

Most group members agreed that the city’s Waterfront Plan should reduce pedestrian and traffic congestion on Union Street and discussed whether some sections of King and Union streets should be closed to vehicular traffic.

There was also some back-and-forth over which transit routes that feed into the waterfront should be better studied, if at all.

Wood said Gibbon Street should be considered because it’s an artery to I-395, but Lyle disagreed that Gibbon should be part of the waterfront plan saying Gibbon is a Fairfax County commuter route.

“If you look at Gibbon, you have to look at Duke,” Olinger said. Christopher Ballard of McWilliams-Ballard added that he was worried about “scope creep.”

The Waterfront Plan Work Group is holding a meeting Wednesday, Sept. 14 to hear comments from the public. It will be held from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. or later at the Mount Vernon Recreation Center on Commonwealth Ave. in the city's Del Ray neighborhood.