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Can you park at a broken parking meter?

By WTOP Staff

WASHINGTON — Confusions continues to abound when it comes to parking at broken parking meters in D.C.

D.C. officials who write tickets can’t always tell if a parking meter is broken, says Bill Howland of the D.C. Department of Public Works.

“We won’t write it if we can determine that it’s a broken meter,” Howland says.

But that is only clear to ticket-writers if the meter says “fail” on it. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you will get a ticket for parking at an expired meter.

Howland suggests calling 311, reporting the broken meter and getting a confirmation number. However, at least one driver told WTOP they received a parking ticket after reporting a broken meter.

The District Department of Transportation also writes parking tickets, and a recent report from the D.C. Office of the Inspector General found a lot of confusion in that agency, including an apparent lack of uniform guidelines for dealing with situations such as a broken parking meter.

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WTOP’s Ari Ashe contributed to this report. Follow @WTOP and @WTOPTraffic on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook.

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