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Articles
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| Church calls ‘performance parking’ rules untenable |
VOICE writes, "BY BEN WEINSTEIN
Leaders of the Capitol Hill’s Ebenezer United Methodist Church say new street-parking regulations for neighborhoods surrounding Nationals Park will unduly burden congregants of the 170-year-old church.
The new regulations recently went into effect around the church, at 400 D St. SE, reserving one side of streets for Ward 6 residents and the other side for limited out-of-area vehicles.
The District Department of Transportation imposed the one-side, two-hour limit for non-ward drivers — Ward 6 residents can park for unlimited time on either side — to discourage baseball fans from parking in residential neighborhoods.
But Ebenezer congregants say two-hour limits on Sundays are too restrictive and that they often need more time.
“This action by the city means persons can come to church, but likely will be given parking tickets if they do,” said Terry Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations, in a recent statement.
The Rev. John Blanchard said Sunday services can go for two hours, and that some people come early to help prepare and stay late for other church activities. "
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“I think we’re being good citizens,” Blanchard said, explaining that churchgoers do not double-park or create the kinds of problems that plague other churches’ neighborhoods. “We don’t want special treatment,” he said, adding that he is simply proposing reasonable solutions that allow the church to operate normally without overly inconveniencing its members.
The church has asked that the regulations around the building start at 2 p.m. on Sundays, instead of 7 a.m. “I welcome the new baseball stadium, but it doesn’t mean local institutions like our churches should be forced out,” Lynch said.
Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells, who introduced the pilot-parking zone legislation, asked that the Transportation Department start Sunday enforcement at 1 p.m. Wells’ chief of staff Charles Allen said the later start time makes sense because no Sunday baseball game begins before 1 p.m.
Transportation Department spokesperson Karyn LeBlanc said the agency has been working on a church-by-church basis to find solutions for specific congregations. The city has given affected churches parking passes so their members would not get ticketed during services.
“We knew this was something that definitely needed to be addressed,” LeBlanc said. She explained that the agency factored in the need for church-parking exceptions while crafting the new regulations, which have been dubbed “performance parking” by Ward 6 D.C. Council member Tommy Wells.
“It’s a living document,” LeBlanc said of the pilot-parking zone regulations, adding that officials intend to assess regularly its effectiveness and adjust it as they go along.
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Posted on Mar 27, 2008 20:56pm.
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