WASHINGTON — Locals know that the annual arrival of D.C.’s beloved cherry blossoms also brings terrible traffic and impossible parking to the Tidal Basin.
Two groups, AAA Mid-Atlantic and the American Bus Association, want the problem fixed for good.
“Unfortunately the solution that local governments have enacted here is to monetize the problem, i.e., pass out tickets,” said AAA Mid-Atlantic’s Lon Anderson during a new conference near the Jefferson Memorial.
Almost 68,000 tickets were handed out during the Cherry Blossom Festival in 2011. AAA estimates that’s about $1.7 million in parking fines.
Anderson says a better satellite parking scenario than the one in use now would help, and so would an idea drawn up by the National Coalition to Save Our Mall called the National Mall Underground project.
“Putting a large parking complex under the Mall that could accommodate buses, that could accommodate cars.”
According to the National Park Service, nearly one third of all visitors and tourists who come to the National Mall area every year do so aboard tour buses.
But Peter Pantuso with the American Bus Association says parking those buses in the city is challenging.
“DDOT will tell you … there might be 900 parking spots. But most of those spots are removed and inaccessible to buses.”
Pantuso says drivers have been told they can park at RFK Stadium but he says that’s not a sensible choice when passengers need to be picked up and dropped off on the National Mall.
“You really have to find solutions that are more centric-based in the city and provide opportunities for those buses to park and to be able to shut off their engines and not idle.”
