Washington, DC – Cost of metered parking in DC to increase starting June 1

Starting Wednesday, the cost of metered parking will go up across the city of Washington D.C. All meters will cost $2.30 – an increase of 30 cents an hour in premium zones, and a 200 percent jump from the current meter rate of 75 cents per hour in normal demand areas. “This does not increase one parking meter space in the city,” said John Townsend, manager of public and government affairs at AAA Mid-Atlantic. “They are exploiting motorists. There’s a finite number of parking meters in the city.” With 18,000 parking meters in D.C., the auto club accused the city of excessive ticketing. “The District has such an impressive dragnet that it issued over 1.6 million parking tickets last year,” Townsend said. He calculates that those parking tickets amounted to almost $88 million.