Funeral Parking: Should You Have to Worry About Tickets?
The Issue: How far should the city go to keep mourners from worrying about parking tickets? A bill before the D.C. Council proposes a five-hour window in which funeral attendees cannot be ticketed in residential zones – as well as the creation of designated funeral zones non-attendees can’t park in during that same time slot. But in neighborhoods like Shaw, which has more than three dozen houses of worship, some fear the legislation is impractical and could hurt business.
Mourning Should Be Exempt: Supporters say slapping parking tickets on funeralgoers' cars is unnecessary – not to mention mean-spirited – and the bill already has a number of cosponsors. At-Large Councilman Michael Brown, who introduced the legislation, told the Washington Examiner: "To have to run out in the middle of a service or have to leave the service early in fear of receiving a parking violation is insensitive to this sacred event."
But Everyone Else Still Needs to Park: “Outrageous, shocking and wacky” are the words Shaw advisory neighborhood commissioner Alex Padro uses to describe the bill. He told City Desk that allotting five hours during the day is simply unrealistic: “People who live on the block won’t be able to park for the better part of a business day, because parking will be restricted only to the funeral. What happens [in neighborhoods like Shaw] when there’s five or six at a time?”
Next Step: Although Padro doesn’t believe the legislation will pass in its current form, he says he will be talking to other commissioners to formulate a response. He might support reducing the time window to one hour. The hearing for the legislation has not yet been scheduled.
Photo of the parking sign on Feb. 24, 2009 by Aldrin Muya, Creative Commons Attribution License
3:22 pm
What's “Outrageous, shocking and wacky” is that anyone downtown would expect to be able to park on the street. There's just not enough curb space to go around.
3:46 pm
"“To have to run out in the middle of a service or have to leave the service early in fear of receiving a parking violation is insensitive to this sacred event.”"
So suck it up and pay for the ticket instead of leaving early. If $35 is more important than your so-called sacred event, it doesn't sound like the deceased was really that important to you.
Another thought: use a funeral home with adequate parking facilities, or get a bus.
It's bad enough that churches filled with out-of-town parishioners get a free pass all day every Sunday. Now funerals too? Sorry of it sounds callous - but DC isn't a small town. It's not like there's one funeral every year. This is undoubtedly a major inconvenience for anyone living near a funeral home. They are for-profit businesses - they shouldn't get a free pass on their customers' parking any more than any other business should.
7:58 pm
I cannot actually believe a DC Council member is so willing to pander to certain groups that he will propose something like this. I'm sorry for your loss, but you are not above the law if you have to attend a funeral. We have buses, trains, taxis, and many other modes to get you around if the parking is too tight.