Back-in angle parking is cropping up all over Richmond
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The key part of back-in parking is ... backing in. Photo: Karri Peifer/Axios
Back-in angle parking, a newish-to-Richmond type of street parking, is cropping up in more parts of the city.
Why it matters: Richmonders don't do well with change, especially when it involves parking.
The big picture: Back-in angle parking is generally a safer way to park because it's easier for drivers to see pedestrians or traffic when exiting a space. Plus it puts drivers closer to the sidewalk once parked, according to urban planners.
- It can also create more overall spaces compared to parallel parking — but safety is the main reason Richmond recently started adding more of it, Paige Hairston, a spokesperson for the city's public works department, tells Axios.
- It takes a wider street to handle back-in spaces, though, so the city is only able to add it where there's "extra width that makes a conversion possible," Hairston notes.
Zoom in: Jefferson Avenue in Church Hill is the latest street where you now back in to park.
- It joins longer-established rows of back-in parking on Libbie Avenue in the Near West End, 19th Street in Shockoe Bottom and Byrd Street downtown.
- More spots are in the works in South Richmond, on Forest Hill Avenue where it forks off from Semmes, as part of broader pedestrian-safety enhancements.
Yes, but: The newish-to-Richmond parking on Jefferson was rolled out with little, if any, how-to information from the city. And, unlike in other parts of town, the spaces near Slurp Ramen and across from Union Market lack signage saying it's back-in.
- A recent poster to Richmond's Reddit forum thought the city had installed the spaces backwards … and the 93 comments the post racked up suggest many locals aren't sure how it all works.
- On a Friday trip to Church Hill, this Axios reporter found more than half the cars were parked facing-forward, the incorrect — and far more dangerous — way to use the spaces.
That backward back-in parking could earn Richmonders a ticket.
- "Front-end parking, as well as parking in crosswalks or within 20 feet of crosswalks, is illegal and will be enforced," Hairston says.
Fun fact: Back-in angle parking actually made its Richmond debut more than a decade ago on 10th Street near City Hall. Neither 10th Street nor Richmonders were fans.
- "I had to struggle to get into it..." one annoyed parker told Channel 12 news.
How it works: You back in. At an angle. As you would when parallel parking, only fewer turns.
- In fact, back-in angle parking is just "half the maneuver" of parallel parking — and for most people, Hairston says, easier to do.
- Richmond, clearly, is not most people. So we've got some work to do.