Performance Parking Pilot

Third Price Change for Performance Parking Pilot Spaces Effective 09/23/2024

On Sept. 23, 2024, prices will be adjusted for some of the highest and lowest-demand parking spaces in the pilot project area, including the Rosslyn-Ballston and Richmond Highway Corridors. These adjustments are the third price change related to the project and are based on parking occupancy data gathered at over 4,000 parking spaces between June 24 and Sept. 1, 2024. 

The third round of adjustments includes increases at approximately 51% of metered parking spaces in the project area, decreases at approximately 11% of spaces, and a combination of increases and decreases at 10% of spaces based on time of day and streamlining. Twenty-eight percent of spaces will not see price changes on this third round.

The goal of this and subsequent price changes is to encourage turnover and greater use of low-demand parking areas to maintain some open parking spaces at all times, even in the highest-demand blocks.  

Prices vary within neighborhoods and are noted at the meter or in one of several parking apps and web-based resources. You can find these under Parking Tools to help you plan for parking at your destination.

Plan Where to Park

Tell Us What You Think

Share Feedback on the Performance Parking Pilot

Learn more about public engagement elements in the Public Process section below.

About This Pilot Project

Arlington's Performance Parking Pilot Project seeks to improve the user experience by: 

• making metered parking spaces more available, more often 
• sharing useful information about parking options in real time
• reducing the negative impacts associated with the search for metered parking (cruising, double parking, going somewhere else to do business, etc.).

The County is piloting a system that combines occupancy technology and pricing tools to provide better information on parking availability and influence demand for metered curb space.

Pilot Map - Project Corridors

The pilot project includes about 4,500 metered parking spaces. The spaces are in two County Planning corridors: Rosslyn-Ballston and Richmond Highway. Most of the spaces included in the pilot will be on-street parking.

System design, installation, testing, and initial data collection will occur in the first year of the pilot project, while the second and third years are dedicated to data collection and pricing calibration. Community outreach and engagement occur throughout all three years of the pilot project.

The pilot will use in-ground sensors to provide real-time occupancy information for each of the parking spaces included in the project area. The sensors can detect the presence or absence of a vehicle, and duration-of-stay can be calculated. No camera technology is being used, and no personally-identifying information can be collected by the system. Once initial occupancy data has been gathered, the project team anticipates applying the pricing tools to the pilot project corridors on a quarterly basis, changing prices up or down across the 4,500 parking spaces included in the pilot to meet the goals of the pilot project. 

Project Updates

• June 24, 2024: Based on parking data from the past winter and spring, a price decrease of $0.25 per hour for 15% of spaces in the study area due to very low occupancy and a price increase at peak occupancy times (over 80% full) for 22% of spaces in the study area. 
• March 18, 2024: Prices were adjusted for some of the highest-demand parking spaces in the Rosslyn-Ballston Corridor. The first round of adjustments included a $0.50 price increase per hour between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. at approximately 12% of metered parking spaces.

Project Basis

The County’s Master Transportation Plan (MTP) Parking and Curbside Element, Policy 5 states that Transportation Staff should “Utilize parking meter pricing strategies that vary by hour and location to better match parking availability and demand.” 

In order to meet this Board-adopted transportation policy, the Parking team, part of the Transportation Engineering & Operations Bureau, applied for and received a $5.4 million grant from the Virginia Department of Transportation’s Innovation and Technology Transportation Fund to install and test technology that would allow staff to make changes to the price of parking across the metered parking network to encourage more efficient use of the system. This pilot project will allow the Parking team to test the efficacy of this technology and determine if it is the right way to achieve the MTP’s stated goals.

The goals of the pilot project, as stated in the grant application submitted to VDOT for funding, are as follows:

• On-street parking is easier to find on block faces with high parking demand than it is today.
• More people choose to park on block faces where demand is low today.
• Fewer instances of double parking occur, freeing up travel lanes and reducing conflicts
• Drivers spend less time looking for on-street parking.
• Drivers perceive that they spend less time looking for on-street parking.
• Members of the public perceive that they have better on-street parking information.
• Vehicle miles travelled resulting from on-street parking search or “cruising” are reduced in the areas with the system.
• Mobile emissions from vehicles are reduced in the areas with the system as a result of reduced vehicle miles travelled.
• Ensuring throughout this process, that community engagement is equitable and inclusive.

Note: these goals are not listed in order of priority, and the first opportunity for public engagement will center on identifying community preferences for prioritizing these goals.

The project does not:

• Seek to increase overall parking revenue. 
• Increase all metered parking rates across the board.
• Decrease the number of reserved ADA-accessible parking spaces. 
• Create dynamically or fast-changing metered pricing (i.e., it is not like the HOT lanes). 

Public Process 

The three-year pilot project aims to improve the user experience for metered parking spaces in two key commercial-residential corridors in Arlington. A recording of the February 2023 public kick-off meeting and an online feedback form are available for exploring this unique project further.

Funding

The project is funded by a Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) Innovation and Technology Transportation Fund grant. 

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