Amid parking challenges for residents and visitors in Old Town, the Traffic and Parking Board approved additional parking spaces yesterday (Monday).
The changes respond to concerns from several businesses about parking availability east of Washington Street in Old Town. One of the major factors was the City Hall and Market Square renovation project, which temporarily closed the 180-space Market Square Garage in early 2026 and requires construction staging areas on surrounding streets.
With the closure of the parking garage underneath City Hall, Alexandria is working on several creative solutions for a growing problem — parking in the heart of Old Town.
Alexandria City Council on Wednesday (April 29) approved City Manager Jim Parajon’s proposal to increase metered parking fees and parking ticket fines.
Without discussion, City Council approved raising parking meter rates from $1.75 to $2.75 and parking ticket fines from $40 to $55. The approvals were part of Parajon’s $979.1 million Fiscal year 2027 budget, which Council approved Tuesday night without a real estate tax increase.
Alexandria City Council has a full docket at its upcoming meeting Saturday as final budgetary decisions approach.
City Council will conduct a number of public hearings, including setting the real estate and personal property tax rates for the next fiscal year, additions and deletions to City Manager Jim Parajon’s proposed $977 million Fiscal Year 2027 budget, an increase to the stormwater utility fee, new parking fees and the addition of paid metered parking on Sundays.
A majority of Alexandria’s City Council won’t support City Manager Jim Parajon’s proposal for paid parking on Sundays, but the door to increasing parking meter rates and fines is still open.
City Council had first reading on a number of parking-related ordinances yesterday (Tuesday), which, if approved later this month, would increase parking meter rates and parking ticket fines and add paid parking to metered spots on Sundays.
Alexandria City Manager Jim Parajon is asking City Council to approve paid parking on Sundays and an increase in parking meter rates.
The initiatives are included in Parajon’s proposed $977.3 million Fiscal Year 2027 budget and have gotten mixed reviews. If approved by City Council, the measure would make Alexandria the only locality in the region with parking meter enforcement on Sundays. Additionally, Parajon is proposing to increase parking violation fines from $40 to $50.
A new pilot program to step up parking enforcement in Old Town netted 4,000 citations in its first month.
A staff memo (page 8) to the Traffic and Parking Board said that over half of the 4,000 parking citations issued through the pilot with contractor Reimagine Parking were for parking meter violations.
New parking meters are being installed in Alexandria to ditch the old pay-and-display system.
Earlier this year, the city started moving away from pay and display systems with new pay-by-plate meters installed in the Carlyle and Potomac Yard neighborhoods. But now, those meters are starting to get a citywide expansion to replace the older systems.
It’s been a scorching week in Alexandria, punctuated by two major crime events.
Someone was shot multiple times in an alley several blocks east of the Braddock Metro station last Saturday, followed on Monday afternoon by the city’s fifth homicide this year — the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old man on W. Glebe Road in Arlandria.
Alexandria’s garages aren’t the only parking tool getting an overhaul.
A report for a meeting of the Traffic and Parking Board later today (Monday) said the city is working through a replacement of the city’s parking meters.
Two months after the City Council authorized changes to what Alexandrians pay to park in Old Town, city staff have come back with new price points for parking.
The aim of the change is to make parking in garages more appealing. Currently, many Old Town garages sit empty while drivers circle blocks looking for on-street parking.
