Standing on the sidewalk outside a Washington Avenue club late Saturday night, Penny Inman switched between looking eastward down the street and staring at her phone.

These days, heading out means hailing a ride through an app for Inman, 30, rather than hunting for parking.

"It's so much easier," she said, waiting for Michael - her Uber driver for the trip home - to arrive.

For efforts to improve Washington Avenue via a once-controversial parking district, Inman's choice - made by many others out for dinner or drinks on the avenue - is reducing revenues to local coffers even as it lines the pockets of cabbies and Uber's army of drivers.

Proponents of the parking district, however, are not alarmed.

"I don't want it to sound like a blame, but it is a fact," said Phyllis Thomason, chairwoman of the Washington Avenue Parking Benefit District's advisory committee. "We're receiving less revenue, but there's less parking and the people are still coming. It makes it a lot easier and safer for them."

City officials are somewhat reluctant to attribute the loss to any one cause, but data show parking meters along Washington and nearby began pulling in less money per month right around the time paid-ride companies such as Uber and Lyft entered Houston in February 2014.

"Pretty much from March 2014, we have seen a decline in revenues," said Maria Irshad, who oversees ParkHouston, the parking division within the city's administration and regulatory affairs department.

In August 2014, the same month City Council approved new rules that went into effect three months later that legitimized the paid-ride firms such as Uber, the meters along Washington and adjacent streets brought in slightly more than $12,000. One year later, August 2015 revenues totaled $8,723. Three months ago, the same number of meters and spaces brought in $8,571.

Though revenues are declining, Irshad said the parking district - created to manage parking after residents worried what effect the growing entertainment district would have on the neighborhood - continues to make money, just less of it. As a result, the improvements planned for the area with the revenue, such as bicycle racks, have taken longer to materialize.

As revenue along Washington Avenue has fallen, ParkHouston's citywide collections have grown.

After consistently topping $10,000 per month during the winter and early spring, revenues for the Washington Avenue parking district have slid to around $7,000 per month. Though the district also has changed slightly with more restaurants and fewer bars opening in the past three years, most agree Uber and similar companies have cut into the parking demand.

Meanwhile, sales tax collections in the district appear unaffected by the parking rules, based on city data. Within the parking district, sales taxes for the first nine months of the calendar year increased from 2012 to 2013 and again from 2013 to 2014. In 2015, spending dipped slightly, and recent drops in the region's economic fortunes appear to have affected Washington Avenue as well. Sales tax collections for 2016 are about $100,000 behind 2014's peak of $1 million annually in the Washington area.

Thomason said some of that change is certainly the economy, but also the maturing of the area. Some bars have been replaced with more upscale restaurants, catering to the young professionals and retired couples moving to the area's new townhomes and smaller loft-style apartments filling in many lots along Washington and nearby streets.

"Things do leave, but something comes and takes its place," Irshad said of the business climate.

It's the second time the parking meter revenue has failed to meet the city's estimates. Officials revised the agreement between the city and the parking district - which oversees how parking revenue is spent along Washington - after the meters didn't generate as much as anticipated. Rather than wait until the district raised $250,000 - the threshold officials initially set - city leaders lowered the amount so the district could start spending money sooner, after $100,000 in revenue.

The first improvements on Washington Avenue, bicycle racks in targeted spots, will be installed later this year.

"We look at the bicycle racks as an opportunity to say to the people 'This is what we can do right now,'" Thomason said.

The racks, designed by a University of Houston student, minimize space so bikes don't block sidewalks, and will be located where the sidewalk is wide enough or on private property with the owner's consent. The V-shaped racks will be used in pairs, giving them a W-shaped appearance along Washington.

Eventually, Thomason said the parking district has discussed more substantive improvements to landscaping and sidewalks, though those efforts - especially at the current pace of revenue - will take time.

Slow going, compared to the concerns some voiced when the parking district began, is still progress, Thomason said.

"I am still optimistic about what this can do along Washington Avenue," she said. "I feel like a lot of the angst that was there at first from the businesses and the people…. I think what we've seen so far, it has taken away that angst."