Parking compliance is up in Arlington, even as rates of parking tickets and traffic citations held relatively steady this year.
What’s behind the change? One new tool at law enforcement’s disposal this year, county and police spokespeople told ARLnow, is better data on where people are and aren’t paying to park.
Last October, the county found that just a fraction of Arlington drivers were paying the full amount to park at meters that had recently been outfitted with sensors as part of the county’s new performance parking program.
In total, the county measured a compliance rate of only around 30%.
That number has improved significantly since then, county spokesperson Claudia Pors told ARLnow. Parking compliance now stands at 50.3%.
But enforcement rates haven’t changed that much. The Arlington County Police Department had issued 74,538 parking tickets as of Nov. 30, slightly down from 76,374 as of that time in 2023.
Traffic citations, meanwhile, are up, but only marginally, according to data provided to ARLnow: 23,654 compared to 22,037 in 2023.
For parking matters, specialized public service aides — not sworn police officers — patrol assigned areas in Arlington, in addition to responding to other community calls for service, ACPD spokesperson Kiyah Daniell noted.
“ACPD also works collaboratively with the Department of Environmental Services to address transportation safety concerns and reviews data from the Performance Parking Pilot to direct parking enforcement efforts, as time and resources permit, in areas shown to have lower compliance with parking regulations,” she said.
The performance parking project involves 4,500 sensors installed along the Rosslyn-Ballston and Richmond Hwy corridors. The sensors monitor compliance rates, and the county sends police summaries of areas with low compliance, according to an FAQ page.
However, if these sensors are responsible for the uptick in compliance, DES spokesperson Katie O’Brien noted that this isn’t actually the main goal of the performance parking project.
Instead, the initiative seeks to improve parking availability by making parking more expensive in areas that see more use, and less expensive in areas with less use.
“The County is piloting a system that combines occupancy technology and pricing tools to provide better information on parking availability and influence demand for metered curb space,” O’Brien said. “Compliance is not part of the pilot scope.”
The past six years of ACPD enforcement stats from Jan. 1 to Nov. 30 are below.
| Year | Parking Tickets | Traffic Citations |
| 2019 | 69,495 | 35,609 |
| 2020 | 52,359 | 23,951 |
| 2021 | 76,068 | 18,813 |
| 2022 | 81,939 | 15,831 |
| 2023 | 76,374 | 22,037 |
| 2024 | 74,538 | 23,654 |