McKeever Says Parking Plan Will Be Revised

It was back to the drawing board on the City of Falls Church's new parking permit plan following a tumultuous public hearing before the Citizens Advisory Committee on Transportation. Falls Church City Manager Dan McKeever confirmed to the News-Press in an interview Tuesday that revisions to the new plan will be completed swiftly that should ameliorate most of the concerns he heard at the City Hall hearing.

McKeever is under time pressure to implement the new policy, since it is designed to address added parking pressures on residential streets in Falls Church coming with the closing for expansion of the West Falls Church Metro station parking lot.

Preliminary work has already begun at the parking lot, while the effort to complete a temporary alternative lot in the 500 block of West Broad pushes forward despite the weather, and the new parking plan bobs and weaves around citizen protests.

In particular, McKeever said, his idea for a simple solution – that a City car registration sticker would suffice to permit all-day parking on City streets – would have to be adjusted.

At the Jan. 15 hearing, it was City residents living along Van Buren Street near the East Falls Church Metro that raised a fuss over that component of the plan, saying that it would encourage City residents from other parts of town to crowd onto their street for all-day parking to use the nearby Metro station.

McKeever had thought that scenario unlikely, but the Van Buren residents apparently prevailed. At the hearing, McKeever conceded to the protesters, "We've heard you. We'll go back and take what you've said into account."

In short, McKeever must now produce another permitting plan that, presumably, will break the City down into sections. "Permitting is important," McKeever said. But to the Van Buren Street residents, however, there may be no option for all-day parking on their street by anyone but themselves that will satisfy them.

Under McKeever's plan, non-City residents could park on City streets up to two hours only in areas adjacent commercial districts for shopping purposes. It also did not address the parking needs of employees of City businesses, something that a representative of the Greater Falls Church Chamber of Commerce addressed at the public hearing.