Washington D.C. Announces 'parkDC'—Value Pricing—for Downtown

"One of the most congested travel zones in downtown Washington will become a lab for experiments in street parking regulation," reports Robert Thomson. "If the program works the way the District Department of Transportation hopes, drivers will find street parking more available in the Gallery Place, Chinatown, Penn Quarter area, and some congestion-causing behavior will be reduced." 

"Under the pilot program, called parkDC, the cost of street parking in that zone will vary much more than it has, and the effects of the changes will be monitored so that more adjustments can be made. The goal of the prices changes is to reach a sweet spot where there’s always one parking space open on each block. DDOT officials call the system 'value pricing.'"

DDOT expects to launch the first changes to the parking system next summer. Decision about the complexity of the pricing system and actual prices have yet to be decided.