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RESIDENTS SAY NEW PARK DC SYSTEM OPAQUE
New Permitting System Raises Issues of Equity, Access by Elizabeth O’Gorek
H
ill resident Michael Briggs was expecting painters at his house. Like many on the Hill, Briggs lives on a street zoned for Residential Parking Permits (RPP), meaning non-residents who need to park for longer than two hours need to have a Temporary Parking Permit (TPP). So Briggs did what he had always done before. He went down to the Metropolitan Police District (MPD) substation today to get the permit. “I discovered that this service, which has worked well for decades, is no longer available through the police,” he wrote on social media. “Instead, the District has turned a smooth efficient process into another cumbersome, complicated bureaucratic mess.”
What is ParkDC?
How to Use it?
Challenges
Residents and visitors must first register themselves on the system, entering their address and identification, usually a driver’s license. Once a resident account is verified and approved, they can view their dashboard and unique code by clicking “get visitor codes.” They can share that code with a visitor and manage visitor requests to park. All parking is controlled by the resident’s unique code and linked to the license plate of the visiting vehicle. Health home aides and contractors must also register for an account, entering their registration information (with the Department of Health and Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs) as well as a code provided by the resident. Contractors are required to pay a $10 fee. The new permits must be printed, either by the resident or the visitor, and displayed on vehicle dashboards.
The website is intended to streamline services, making it more user-friendly and convenient to manage from home. But many residents say it is anything but. ANC 6B Transportation Committee Chair Kirsten Oldenburg said that many of the initial issues reported by residents were with the data used by the system, which had difficulty verifying identification and street addresses during the pilot. A lot of residents had trouble simply being registered. That meant they couldn’t get through to the second part: obtaining the passes. Some simply gave up. “I’m not a technical wiz,” Hill Resident Norman Metzger told the Hill Rag. “But I’m on the computer a lot. I use a lot of different apps– and this just baffles me.” First, the program did not recognize his address. Metzger alerted DDOT, and the correction was made. Then, the system didn’t recognize his block as a location eligible for VPP.
ParkDC (parkdc.com) is a new, centralized digital system for DC residents and their visitors to manage visitor, temporary, home health aide and contractor parking permits via a single online portal. It launched District-wide July 1, 2021 after a brief pilot. Before ParkDC, each DC resident was entitled to one annual Visitor Park Pass (VPP) placard, linked to their home address. These could be placed on the dashboard of visiting vehicles, allowing them to park on blocks zoned for residential parking only. Residents could also get a shortterm VPP for visitors, health care workers or contractors, which were good for 15 days, by walking into a Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) station. All of these functions have now moved to the ParkDC system, meaning people have to interact with a lengthy technological process in order to get any type of Images: ParkDC centralizes permitting for visitors, contractors and health care aides. Chart: DDOTDC; screenshot June 8 meeting parking permit. ANC 6B, Webex]
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