NEWS RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, December 22, 2011

CONTACT: LINDA GRANT 202.671.2375

DPW STATEMENT DESCRIBING ENFORCEMENT OF PARKING REGULATIONS: FOOD TRUCKS (Washington, DC) The DC Department of Public Works enforces parking regulations to encourage turnover in metered parking spaces so customers may reach District businesses and help residents to access parking spaces near their homes. This enforcement is in response to strong competition for legal curbside parking and reflects the needs of residents, businesses and the motoring public. The Departments second most requested service is increased parking enforcement, whether that is from businesses that want more turnover at spaces near their establishments or residents who want a space close to their homes. In FY 2011 (October 1, 2010 September 30, 2011) DPW issued more than 1.6 million parking tickets. DPW does alter its deployment of parking enforcement officers in response to changing circumstances. In early October 2011, the Department introduced a rotating two-person unit to address the increased presence of food trucks that violate parking regulations governing the use of curbside spaces. This unit is charged with ticketing all vehicles, not just food trucks that violate parking regulations, and food trucks are required to follow the same parking regulations as other vehicles. The parking enforcement officers have handheld devices that indicate if a driver has parked and paid for parking using the pay-by-cell technology. If expired meters were observed and no ticket was written there is a 99.999% chance that the driver paid by cell. DC has an extremely high conversion rate for pay-by-cell because of the convenience it offers drivers. Sometimes it appears as though vehicles are being skipped that are parked at flashing red meters but because they have been verified through Parkmobile (the payby-cell contractor) as paid, they cant be ticketed for a red meter. The officers time these vehicles and attempt to pick them up later as they do with the vendor trucks. As for the no parking/no standing violator, that vehicle had been ticketed by another officer.

Our procedure is for the parking enforcement officer to make an initial tour of the zone, capturing information about vehicles that are parked, especially the time. The officers subsequent tours are timed to correspond with the amount of time a vehicle can park in the zone. For instance, if the officer arrives at the zone at 11 am, the next tour of the zone will begin about two hours later. When the officer identifies a vehicle that is parked longer than allowed he or she will write a ticket. Also, it is illegal to feed the meter to stay in a parking space longer than is designated on the meter. Since October, the unit has written about 68 tickets on food trucks, compared to 315,000 tickets written by all parking enforcement officers for all parking violations during the same period. # # #