NIH Director Defends Decision To Add More Employee Parking

Updated at 3:45 p.m. — The director of the National Institutes of Health is defending the agency's controversial decision to add employee parking to its Bethesda campus. Dr. Francis Collins said NIH was surprised by a 2004 decision from the National Capital Planning Commission that set a new guideline for Washington area federal agencies. Agencies are now expected to pursue a ratio of one parking space for every three employees as a way to dissuade single-occupancy vehicle trips and encourage use of mass transit. Collins made the defense in a letter to County Councilmember Roger Berliner, who along with Rep. Chris Van Hollen and state legislators recently urged NIH to reconsider adding more parking spots in its campus expansion plan. Collins also wrote that most NIH employees can't afford housing in downtown Bethesda, much of which is within walking distance of the NIH campus. He referred to "numerous high-rise construction projects boasting luxury apartments that will be unaffordable for nearly all NIH and Walter Reed employees." Current employee parking on the 310-acre NIH campus exceeds the 1:3 ratio by 2,129 spaces. The agency's master plan will increase employee parking by 1,000 more spaces over the next 20 years, resulting in a long-term parking ratio of 1 parking space for every 2.4 employees. The National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) rejected the plan because of the parking issue at its meeting on April 2. The hearing included a nearly hour-long discussion with an NIH planning official who claimed the agency needs the parking because it employs "a bunch of high-ranking scientists," and "not your regular people." While the NCPC's rejection of NIH's master plan won't prevent the agency from going forward, it could mean that the Commission doesn't approve future projects on the campus. NCPC members said it's also rare for an agency and the group to be so far apart on a planning issue. In his letter to Berliner, Collins detailed why the agency thinks the 1:3 parking ratio guideline was problematic in the first place. "NCPC's adoption in 2004 of a parking ratio goal of 1:3 came as a surprise to NIH, as it was developed unilaterally, contained no evidence of feasibility, was oriented toward office facilities (as opposed to the NIH's twenty-four hour operations), and was implemented after contracts for the NIH's two new parking garages had been awarded," Collins wrote. NIH awarded construction contracts for two new employee garages in 2003. Additional info provided with the letter said NIH has more than 1,000 nurses and 1,200 physicians who work around-the-clock patient shifts, with two or three shifts that start or end at 11 p.m. The NIH has also deemed that 53 percent of its employees live in areas that aren't served well by Metro. The additional material provided by the agency claimed Red Line reliability and overcrowding are issues, citing standing-room only trains at the Shady Grove station by 8 a.m. "While Metrorail is viable for many employees, it is not a perfect solution," Collins wrote. Collins also wrote that the vast majority of Rockville Pike traffic comes not from NIH employees but via commuters from D.C., Friendship Heights and downtown Bethesda. NIH provided a traffic study in its master plan environmental impact statement that found the agency generated no more than 50 vehicle trips at any one time during the morning rush hour. PDF: NIH letter on parking ratio Via NIH