No Parking Crisis

Now that the lower parking lot for the playground is cancelled, the Dominion Hill Civic Association's Board is “upset that the additional amenities planned at the park will bring more traffic, which likely will be forced to park in neighborhood streets.” They think there will be "thousands of new park patrons per year," who will need convenient parking. Local apartment dwellers who park on Wilson Blvd. will park in Dominion Hills if the 25 slots on Wilson Blvd. adjacent to the park are time-limited to three hours for park goers.

The addition of a smallish 17-space parking lot for the playground, however, would hardly suffice to deal with this amount of traffic. And adding it would reduce the number of on-street parking spaces on Wilson since the parking lot would need a curb-cut for a new access road. Moreover, since the park parking lot is not open at night, the net loss of overnight parking spaces on Wilson could lead to more overnight parking in Dominion Hills neighborhoods.

This concern is exaggerated. There is no shortage of parking in the area during the daylight hours the playground would be used.

Nighttime all year is not an issue. The park is closed at dusk. Presumably the County will continue to allow overnight parking. Thus, there is no new burden for residents for overnight parking.

Fall, winter and spring are not problems. The pool is closed three quarters of the year and the upper parking lot is empty and under utilized. Playground or pavilion users would have plenty of parking most of the year.

Work week day-time all year likely not an issue. During the day, many of the tradesman who park on Wilson are gone. A Google Earth photo taken on Monday, April 30, 2018 shows mostly empty spots along the park (as well as across Wilson and on nearby streets). More photos show the same.

Plenty of parking. April 30, 2018 Google Earth picture of Wilson Blvd. next to park

Upper parking lot mostly or entirely empty three-quarters of the year when the pool is closed, e.g., October 21, 2018

During day light hours on some weekends during the summer there may be some competition for spots between residents of the area and those driving from farther away. (Sunday if any day may be it as any number of the tradesmen are working Saturday.) But generally there always seems to be some parking on Wilson.

In the surrounding parking lots in the Rt. 50 malls near the apartments there is excess parking (e.g. Willston Centre’s west side is not really used). Arlington and Fairfax Counties, NOVA Parks, the apartment block owners, and the mall, business and churches could coordinate to help the residents of the apartments to make use of the underutilized parking spaces. A few meetings could save money and help prevent paving over more of the Seven Corners area.

Parking controversy – or NOVA Parks’ bad business model?

But if there is now a crisis between saving trees and a parking crunch, this says NOVA Park's big plans for Upton Hill are probably too big for its small space. NOVA Parks’ business model where people are encouraged to drive all over N. Virginia to get to “destination” parks is not environmentally sustainable. It is outdated and out of sync with what is needed for the region and the environment. It is adding to traffic and congestion in the region, adding to air pollution, adding impervious surface, and adding to the water run-off problem. It reduces greenspace, cuts trees, and goes against improving the Chesapeake Bay and helping to preserve our larger environment.

Plus more traffic adds to the possibilities of more accidents! If there are indeed going to be 1000s of new visitors arriving in cars, transportation safety planners in Arlington should be looking into it.