By John Matthews and Grace Palo
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON — (WMAL) The owners of Reston Town Center have put off a plan to start charging for weekday parking until at least January – they say to give more time to educate the public on why it most be done.
Suzanne Zurn, who launched a petition drive with 7,500 signatures to oppose the policy. says she’s thankful the property’s owner is listening to the concerns of the opponents. She says RTC’s contention that parking must be charged to keep away Metro commuters using the Silver Line is bogus.
She points out that there are THREE Metro stations at Tysons Corner with no dedicated Metro parking, and the mall there still does not charge for parking.
She also says the rates RTC wants to charge are outrageous – Double the amount charged at Pentagon City Mall.
“The 7,500 people who signed this petition will be watching and keeping the pressure on Reston Properties to do the right thing for our community,” Zurn told WMAL. “We’re happy for this delay, but a delay in implementing the same system and rates is not an acceptable outcome.”
One other major concern of opponents is new technology installed at the Mall that is nominally in place to help shoppers find their cards. Shoppers can enter their license plate number at a kiosk, and find an image of their car and its location in the garage. Security experts say this “benefit” is in fact a privacy and security nightmare can look for any car they want.
“In other cities where the same technology was deployed, it was dubbed by security experts as the stalkers ‘dream machine.'” Zurn said.
Zurn says she hopes RTC doersn’t just come back four months from now with the same policies in place. She suspects the mall put off the policy because the holiday shopping season is fast approaching as it doesn’t want sales to be threatened.
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