Street parking in D.C. is changing as district officials are trying to get more money from those who drive in the city.
“The exercise today is about money,” D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson said. “It’s about the fact that we had a proposal that generated some revenue and we have to change that proposal, and the change is within the scheme of how we charge for parking.”
The hours in which drivers are required to feed the meters were set to expand. The council voted to keep many meters in effect until midnight, which was expected to raise more money for D.C. government, but a problem with how the expanded hours were calculated forced the council to rethink the plan.
The council voted Tuesday to roll back the hours from midnight to 10 p.m. but to increase the cost of parking meters.
“At this point it’s better than to increase the hours to essentially all meters … and to have the rate uniform at meters across the city,” Mendelson said.
Under the new plan, the parking fee will increase from 50 cents per 15 minutes to 50 cents per 13 minutes.
It’s the first parking meter fee increase in several years, Mendelson said.
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“I don’t think this is out of step and I think that this is a better approach than the extended hours,” he said.
The new fee goes into effect June 1.
