May 2, 2007
Marion, D.C. Tolls Not For Thee
Four hundred thousand people drive into D.C. each day for work and for fun, and the fact that none of them pays for the traffic and pollution they create has peeved more than a few city denizens. Asking drivers to cough up a few bucks to access our fair city is not a new idea, with everyone from local residents to the Post's Marc Fisher airing the idea out. Even Mayor Fenty (following the lead of his NYC BFF Michael Bloomberg) has said he's considered the idea, recently telling WTOP radio, "You do have a lot of commuters who use our infrastructure and don't pay any taxes."
Councilmember Marion Barry jumped on the bandwagon as well, introducing legislation yesterday along with Kwame Brown and Harry Thomas to study the idea of assessing commuters and tourists a fee by placing toll booths at all of the city's street entrances.
Now, we could be hearing ol' Marion wrong, but did he say tollbooths? It's not that the idea of a congestion charge is bad. Similar fees have been quite successful in cities such as London, Stockholm, and parts of Singapore, and it's worth exploring if it could work for D.C. It's the idea of putting a tollbooth on every road that crosses into D.C. that is astoundingly impractical. Tollbooths mean lines of idling cars inching forward to hand over their money, creating both traffic and pollution - two of the problems congestion fees are supposed to help with. The use of EZ-Pass tags could speed things up, but they are far from universal. The construction, maintenance, and staffing of tollbooths would also lessen the revenue generated by congestion pricing, further counteracting its purpose. Let's also not forget that, with dozens of main roads and side streets to cover, the logistics of such an undertaking are, well, illogical.
Like we said, it's possible that Councilman Barry was simply confused (wouldn't be the first time), and he really meant to propose the sophisticated electronic toll collection systems that have been set up in other cities that charge a congestion fee. If that's the case, we suggest he hop on over to the Wilson Building to amend his proposal. If not, we have to declare this idea dead on arrival.
Photo by billjacobus1
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Haha, atta guy Marion!
Let's see, to make this work all we have to do is put a toll booth up at Pennsylvania Avenue, Suitland Road, Route 50, Wisconsin Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, the 14th Street Bridge, the Roosevelt Bridge, the Memorial Bridge, the Key Bridge, Branch Avenue, Sheriff Road, New Hampshire Avenue, Georgia Avenue, ....nevermind I'm too tired.
This will work as well as Sharon Pratt's idea to put the national guard on the DC border to stop gun dealers from entering the city.
I assume all would want this to work both ways to catch all the DC residents heading out for grocies, etc. in NoVa?
Sure, NoVa sucks anyway.
This idea is terrible. If we want to make drivers pay more for the use of our roads, raise parking meter fees significantly and raise the taxes on the parking garages.
Forget about those pacecar stickers. Leave it to Councilmember Barry to come up with an idea that will really slow down those suburban speeders.
That's a fine idea, Reid, except that would apply to all drivers, not just those coming into DC from Virginia and Maryland. I think the post makes it pretty clear that the targets of this proposal are residents of those states who drive into DC for work and don't pay taxes here. The only flaw with this plan, of course, is that there's no in-kind measure for Metro commuters. How about fare raises that apply to out-of-towners only? I think that and Barry's suggestion have an equally likely (that is to say, dismal) chance of happening.
I think Marion Barry has a good idea. Just needs careful planning. Va and Md drivers idling during rush hour in the the city is more of a prob than at any toll plaza.
The lineup of Barry, Brown and Thomas is on the more shallow end of the deep thinking pool.
This is a great idea. Other cities have managed to make it work with great success. It comes on the heels of the news, if the same message over and over can be news, that our air quality has worsened.
Bravo to Barry, Brown and Thomas.
Considering how much those toll booths look like men's urinals, I think Marion is just waiting to unveil the real added benefit to his plan- our lack of public bathrooms problem is fixed as well.
yeah, great idea.
All DC businesses would move to VA (tysons has more office space than San Diego)
How about building a big dome over the whole city? That way, we can easily control who comes in and out, we can filter the air so that it's always clean, and we can turn on lights during cloudy days. It'll be just like the Truman Show, but better!
What, is he smoking crack?
again
Kwame Brown is taking a once promising career and flushing it down the toilet.
The concept of a congenstion zone is one thing. How about the spill over traffic across Western, Eastern and Southern Avenues by commuters trying to avoid toll booths on the main avenues?
What about the reverse toll collections?
What about, this is a nightmare which only continues the legend of stupifity in politics.
lswanson- take a look at a map. do you see how many entrance points there are to the district from md? do you realize how many of those are narrow little residential streets? sure, you could say, just toll the major commuter routes, but then you have all those people trying to avoid the toll by driving in on those residential streets. it's lose/lose. heck, some people may cross into md incidentally just to go shopping. if you live near western avenue, NE of, say, mazza gallery, the fastest route to get over there is to head over via western. that involves technically leaving the district and then coming back in a few blocks down the road. that's just plain dumb.
I think this is a fantastic idea, I'm also a DC resident that uses only public transit, so I'm a bit biased. I suggest checking out the wikipedia entry on the London Congestion Charge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_congestion_charge
An excerpt on its effectiveness:
"The main findings of the report were that on average the number of cars entering the central zone was 60,000 fewer than the previous year, representing a drop in non-exempt vehicles of 30%. Around 50–60% of this reduction was attributed to transfers to public transport, 20–30% to journeys avoiding the zone, and the remainder to car-sharing, reduced number of journeys, more traveling outside the hours of operation, and increased use of motorbikes and cycles. Journey times were found to have been reduced by 15%. Variation in journey time for a particular route repeated on many occasions also decreased."
They are ALL smoking crack to come up with this.
So, every time I go to NoVa or to Silver Spring to visit a friend or see a movie, I have to pay to re-enter my OWN city? Ridiculous.
If this happens, even if it were worked out so that only non-DC residents had to pay, businesses in the city will shut down because workers who drive will NOT pay this "tax" and it will not help the situation to push them onto the already overcrowded Metro.
"You do have a lot of commuters who use our infrastructure and don't pay any taxes."
Is Mayor Fenty unaware of the draconian 10% sales tax that anybody who buys any food in the district pays?
It seems like I might not have been clear enough:
Congestion pricing is generally a good idea, and it should be explored in D.C. I question whether or not we have enough traffic congestion for it to make much a difference in clearing either the streets or the air. The MUCH bigger problem as far as air quality comes from the suburbs (and Beltway) that surround us.
It's the notion that you could collect the fee with tollbooths that's ridiculous. England does it with cameras that recognize your license plate. Stockholm uses electronic payment stations at the entrance to the congestion zone, of which there are far fewer than in DC. Singapore uses devices like EZ-Pass, but they are mandatory in cars. With the number of roads that lead into the city, I would guess that the London system would work the best.
Amy, in other cities, residents are exempt from the fee. Also, it is only applied during business hours. Weekends and evenings are free. Kinda like your cell phone.
First of all, it is utterly ridiculous and downright offensive that Fenty or anyone else would claim that commuters entering DC do not pay ANY taxes to support the City's infrastructure. Has anyone heard of sales tax? Do they honestly think that commuters make NO contribution to the city's economy?
There is a reason I no longer live in the District--there is a complete and utter failure to provide basic public services to its residents and a dearth of retail outlets in which to shop for the conveniences of modern living--like a fully-stocked and, more importantly, SAFE grocery store in a neighborhood accessible to young professionals or anyone else of moderate income (i.e., not the Residences at the Ritz Carlton).
Spending the City's limited financial and human resources on tollbooths or other technology to double-tax commuters who pump millions of dollars into the City's economy each day is not only ridiculous or offensive, it is irresponsible and short-sighted.
"That's a fine idea, Reid, except that would apply to all drivers, not just those coming into DC from Virginia and Maryland. I think the post makes it pretty clear that the targets of this proposal are residents of those states who drive into DC for work and don't pay taxes here. The only flaw with this plan, of course, is that there's no in-kind measure for Metro commuters. How about fare raises that apply to out-of-towners only? I think that and Barry's suggestion have an equally likely (that is to say, dismal) chance of happening."
I don't doubt that Barry wants to use this as a backdoor commuter tax but I think the objective should be on reducing congestion and pollution, regardless of where the driver comes from. If you live in DC and drive to work, I think you should pay more, regardless of the fact you pay income taxes here. With all the bus and metro lines throughout DC, there is little excuse to drive to work (I realize some live in areas with only limited bus service, but most people don't).
And the notion of using the Metro to achieve a commuter tax is especially misplaced. For one, VA and MD pay for and control the system just as much as DC does. It's not a DC agency. Second, we should encourage more MD and VA residents to use Metro because to more important objective is to reduce congestion and pollution, not to install a backdoor commuter tax.
When is this guy going back to jail? At least he can't do too much damage to our city from there.
Good-bye DC economy...hello Arlington as the fastest business growth center in the country.
But hey, when has Barry ever cared about this city?
Reid, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think, if they're going to do it at all, they might as well go whole hog and figure out some way of applying the same kind of tax/charge/what have you to Metro riders as well. Is that totally unreasonable?
MD commuter:
Please refrain from complaining about being double taxed until you lose your representation in congress and are still forced to pay federal taxes.
I think a plan like the London Congestion zone is a fantastic idea. Furthermore the extra money (or at least some of it) can be used to fund Metro, which would benefit everyone.
Folks, this proposal has nothing to do with whether it will ever see the light of day. It was a brainstorm of an idea put out by a local super-duper liberal group. It has no chance of passing. They just needed someone to be dumb enough to introduce it. And they found 3 winners to do it. The plan to put up tollbooths is utterly impractible given Wards 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 share borders (and dozens of roads) with MoCo and PGCo. But by putting out such sillines, it gets people talking about other traffic-reducing ideas.
Unfortunately, it also gets people talking about what stupid ideas are coming out of the DC Council.
It's not just the Sales tax which commuters contribute. More importantly it's that they are employees of companies which pay taxes in DC. The competition to attract talent is steep - anything that raises the cost of 1) doing business in the city or 2) raising taxes borne on commuters that deters employees from coming in the city will help to move businesses from the city and into the 'burbs. It may not be Tyson's, but Roslyn, Crystal City, Silver Spring, Bethesda, and Friendship Heights all have cheaper office space in a transit-oriented semi-urban environment close to the city.
I think the city loses with a commuter tax.
"Reid, I don't necessarily agree with it, but I think, if they're going to do it at all, they might as well go whole hog and figure out some way of applying the same kind of tax/charge/what have you to Metro riders as well. Is that totally unreasonable?"
Yes I do think it is unreasonable. For the reasons I stated, plus the fact that the tolls are ostensibly based on the idea that non-DC residents are putting a burden on our roads without paying for it (a falsehood, as argued above. I don't know that they pay for it completely, but between sales tax, cigarette tax, parking tax, and the general economic activity produced, I think commuters pay a good deal of the way here). If you're justifying the tolls (or congestion charges) on the road repair costs, then to apply it to people riding the Metro is completely illogical unless your real and only objective is to establish a commuter tax.
If the point is to establish a commuter tax, then call it one and don't cloak it in a veil of anti-congestion or environmentalism.
Would the ambulances from Bethesda-Chevy Chase that upper Northwest residents call because the DCFD's ambulance service is so bad have to pay the toll as well?
So here's my question- I realize that the booths are just going to be EZ pass type dealy deals. The question is, will people be encouraged to slow down to have them read properly, or will the flow of traffic continue unabated? I'm skeptical that people wouldn't slow down. And if one breaks? It's the sort of thing that could make traffic so hellish that the tax would seem not terribly worthwhile.
Just have cameras catch out-of-DC plates (MD or VA) coming into the city. That is how the London congestion charge basically works. You would not have to have DC residents pay any fee to exit or reenter the city.
Businesses will leave DC because of toll booths? That's not really supportable. Countless cities have various toll booth situations, and I seriously doubt the business community all got up and left those cities.
As for the sales tax, that's fairly miniscule compared to what most cities charge for non-residents that work in their cities. All cities rely on income tax to fund basic city services.
Most major cities charge an income tax based on where you work. That right is denied DC. So in effect MD and VA suburbs get a free ride off of DC.
Go to the Stand Up for Democracy website to see how much of an economic boon this is to MD and VA.
And even with that stunning free benefit you bet your sweet butt MD and VA have sales tax as well.
But I too think toll booths are a logistic impossibility.
E: Any actual commuter tax would cost VA and MD residents ZERO dollars. It would have an offset in their federal taxes or some other mechanism to make sure they pay absolutely nothing above what they are paying now. That's the only way it'd fly politically.
And many of those coming into DC either work for the Feds or for nonprofits. Neither the Feds nor nonprofits are going anywhere because of a commuter tax that has ZERO real effect on their workers or on them, since they don't pay taxes anyway.
Why not just replace each and every stoplight with one of these things?
Bank a nickle at each, and think of it as DC's profitable and traffic calming answer to the California Stop or the Slow and Go.
Okay. I'm kidding. Sort of.
The wrong measure is being used here. It's not a question of whether or not commuters technically pay enough tax to support wear and tear on roads.
The real measure is based on how cities work. Most cities rely on the income tax from bedroom communities to fund the city core itself. Not just road costs. All the costs of running a city are paid from income taxes. Yes, I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that's the standard setup.
DC is the ONLY city in America denied that very basic funding source.
And let's not forget that DC pays for the functions of state government as well - judicial systems, DMVs, etc.
It's especially egregious since many DC suburbs actively participated in 40 years of social policy that guaranteed DC was saddled with most of the very poor and the costs associated with caring for them.
So let's see. You dump the poor in DC for decades. Then you refuse DC the ability to care for what are essentially the poor for the entire region.
That hardly seems fair.
Just as big a problem are commuters coming into DC and hogging residential parking spaces. DC's very lenient residential parking rules are a joke. Try parking for more than five minutes in many parts of Rosslyn, Arlington, etc. Your sweet DC butt would be towed faster than Alberto Gonzales can say "I don't recall".
So why is it that so many commuters think they have a right to park in DC residential communities all day?
Again, I see a fairly huge double standard here.
I'm always amazed at how most of the people who warn us that a commuter tax would sink DC just happen to live outside the city.
Even more amazing is that they are just so... darn nice... to concern themselves with and defend the wellbeing of DC residents.
This is a ridiculous proposal from a ridiculous man, and is a clear attempt at pandering to his DC resident constituency with no thought to how this would actually work. The only places you could toll are river crossings, and come on, it's not exactly like crossing the Delaware. There are a hundred ways to get across, including avoiding the major bridges. This is completely unfeasible. Not to mention that we want to ENCOURAGE people to work and establish offices in DC.
If you need to increase taxes to pay for transportation infrastructure, tax the parking. If you drive into the city, you will need a place to put your car. And yes, that would tax DC residents as well, but I thought we were trying to 'discourage' driving to work in favor of public transportation.
Taxing the parking isn't really that much of a solution. Many federal workers have federally-provided parking. Do you think the Feds are going to allow DC to tax those spaces?
And increasing the cost of using public or even private (non-Federal) parking spaces will just encourage commuters to park for free on residential streets.
But you are right when you say it's a ridiculous proposal from a ridiculous man.
Does anyone else have the same vision I do, of Slim Pickens and his gang riding up to the toll booth at Chevy Chase Circle, yelling, "Does anybody got a dime? Somebody's gotta go back and get a ...load of dimes!"
"The real measure is based on how cities work. Most cities rely on the income tax from bedroom communities to fund the city core itself. Not just road costs. All the costs of running a city are paid from income taxes. Yes, I'm sure there are some exceptions, but that's the standard setup"
Obviously not all the costs of a city are paid for by income taxes. There's sales taxes, etc., not to mention the real estate taxes, which probably eat as much of a DC resident's pay check as the income tax does.
Yes every other city can charge their bedroom communities a city-specific income tax. But keep in mind that the flow of tax dollars in most cities is out to the rural poor of that state. We don't have that in DC. If you want to be just like every other city, than our income taxes would be flowing to SW Virginia or Southern MD.
I am a DC resident against the commuter tax because: A) I think our government needs to figure out how to spend the money it has better before it starts worrying about spending non-resident's money B) Commuters don't use many of the most expensive DC services [e.g. public schools, social welfare, etc.] and they already contribute in the form of taxes and economic activity; and C) A commuter tax would imperil the plans for a Federal payment to the District to compensate for our unique situation.
Colin needs to fix his article. 400,000 people don't drive into D.C. each day. That number includes commuters who take the train, metro, bus, or car-pool. If you count the White House add helicopters to that list.
Reid:
My apologies. My original post was unclear and poorly written.
Clearly not all taxes are income taxes. What I meant to say was that income taxes go to pay for all kinds of city functions, not just maintenance of transportation infrastructure.
And I disagree about commuters not using DC services. Unbelievably, many of our schools (especially elementary) are larded up with MD students. I routinely see lines of cars with MD plates lining up at schools on the Hill to pick up their kids that are being educated (sortof) for free by DC taxpayers.
And now that parts (but not all) of PG County have become such crime centers a lot of that spills over into DC and we pay the price for it.
And of course there are the suburban johns that keep the street prostitution business in DC alive, costing us police resources.
And there are the suburban club kids that keep a good deal of the street drug business going. Again, costing police resources.
And for years MD (and to some extent VA) residents have moved to DC specifically to take advantage of our social services. And quite a few claim DC residency to get those services even though they live in MD.
And then there are the churches. They take valuable land off the tax roles. They require police, fire, and infrastructure. And so many of them live in MD.
And, as I mentioned before, the MD and DC suburbs have benefitted greatly from the segregation of the poor in DC for decades. They have been living with the fiscal benefits of dumping their poor in DC for longer than most of us have been alive.
And let's not forget the hordes of people that actually do live in DC but claim their home states as residency. They pay no income tax. They don't register their cars here, so they pay no tax on that. They are essentially tax cheats. In my block alone I know five or six people that do that. This is unusually common in DC because of the political nature of the town.
Those people take advantage of all DC services, and they pay no income tax to DC.
why is it that people so consistently give birth to the damndest excuses for giving us, the citizens of the district of columbia, our fair share? i know barry isnt talking about (dare i say it? ) commuter taxes, but other major cities have tolls and the aforementioned, and the suburban dwellers havent fallen into a hellish pit as far as i can tell...
my hometown is just a friggin playtoy for you maryland and virginia folks , to be used as you dang well please...
for what it is worth, it pisses me off to no end... your arrogance, and feelings of entitlement.
Re: MDCommuter Strange Comments
I do not live in the Ritz Carlton, so not have a car to access the suburbs and do not make an extravagant salary yet manage do just fine re: grocery (and other) shopping in the District. As for the safety of such shopping, I have been grocery (and other) shopping in the District for almost two decades and am happy to report that I have emerged safely and soundly each time.
Hillman many of the costs you are attributing to MD and VA residents are the product of illicit activity. How does that justify charging commuters? You could make the same argument that most crime comes out of certain neighborhoods in DC, so we ought to charge those residents a higher income tax to account for certain of their neighbors being a bigger burden.
People argue for a commuter tax because they say commuters in their capacity as commuters (i.e. going to work, working in buildings, going out to lunch and going home) are a burden on the city. Whether MD or VA residents in their capacity as churchgoers, etc., are a burden on our city seems unrelated to a question of