Why so many food trucks?

[Anonymous]

The food truck parking situation is out of control by the museums. We drove downtown this weekend to do touristy type things and was floored that there were food trucks parked on Madison Avenue in front of the museums. They were parked in a no parking area putting out so much exhaust and gas. It made sitting on the mall unpleasant. They also took up all of the parking on the backside of the museums. There was no parking for regular cars. The parking spots were all staked out earlier by the food truck people. Do they get ticketed, are they exempt from parking rules?

Clearly I missed something in the past couple of years allowing so many trucks. There used to be a lottery system, which might’ve been too extreme on one end but now it’s extreme on the other side.

I am mostly just curious as to what changed in the past couple of years.

[Anonymous]

Some of them park junk cars along the Mall to save a spot, and they do get ticketed. DC was proposing to legalize the food trucks along the Mall and set up a lottery/permit process, but I don't know what the status of that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of them park junk cars along the Mall to save a spot, and they do get ticketed. DC was proposing to legalize the food trucks along the Mall and set up a lottery/permit process, but I don't know what the status of that is.

OP here- and I was always for food trucks but it was really quite a sight to see the entire street lined with trucks. If you can imagine every single spot from the sculpture garden all the way down to the African-American museum was food truck, but what took the cake for me was seeing them parked in front of the museums, mall side. It looked, sounded, and smelled awful. They weren’t even good food trucks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of them park junk cars along the Mall to save a spot, and they do get ticketed. DC was proposing to legalize the food trucks along the Mall and set up a lottery/permit process, but I don't know what the status of that is.

OP here- and I was always for food trucks but it was really quite a sight to see the entire street lined with trucks. If you can imagine every single spot from the sculpture garden all the way down to the African-American museum was food truck, but what took the cake for me was seeing them parked in front of the museums, mall side. It looked, sounded, and smelled awful. They weren’t even good food trucks.

There has always been a lot, but it sounds like it has gotten extreme. My guess is that with office workers not returning to work, more and more are vying for the tourists on the mall where there are in fact very few good food options.