Posts about Mary Cheh

Gray said he will use some of the money to hire 100 new police officers. That's fine, though if the police officers don't focus on traffic, then it ultimately is just using camera revenue for things other than road safety.

We need to do more for traffic safety. DC is adding a few cameras which will make a big impact, but there's a lot of dangerous driving out there. A few cameras with high fines will stem a little bit of it and raise a bunch of money. I want to see us stem a lot more of it, and the only realistic way to do that is to expand the cameras significantly.

A major element of the Wells-Cheh bill is a provision that some camera revenue goes into a fund the Metropolitan Police Department can use to buy more cameras. Regardless of the level of fines, it's critical to set up a system whereby the stock of cameras can automatically grow over time.

It's also critical to ensure that the political blowback from speed cameras doesn't stop the District government from adding more. Now, it's not clear what exactly is necessary to achieve this. If Gray had 3-4 more years on his mayoralty, there might be little need to change the fines. Gray shows no interest in curtailing the plan whatsoever, regardless of fines, and in fact is resistant to lowering fines.

The DC Council might have disapproved some contracts for new cameras, but it couldn't. The next year's budget counts on a lot of revenue from cameras, which means that if councilmembers had wanted to delete the cameras, they would have had to fill a big budget hole.

What about in the future? If Gray doesn't run for reelection, as most speculate he won't, then the next mayor might have a different view. Maybe the next mayor will be so hostile to cameras that it won't matter how high or low the fines are. Or maybe he or she will keep cameras going no matter what.

From a safety point of view, fines don't need to be high as long as it's having a deterrent effect. At the press conference, Police Chief Cathy Lanier said she doesn't believe $50 fines are enough to deter, but council staff could find no studies that showed any conclusive correlation between fine size and driving behavior.

That suggest that high fines don't really improve safety. On the other hand, it also means that lowering fines probably won't do anything for safety either—unless lowering fines changes the political dynamic and allows more cameras.

It's not clear it will. AAA's John Townsend participated in the task force, and said in the meetings that AAA would support cameras as long as they're not for revenue. But then, last week AAA still came out with a provcative study of how many dollars certain cameras brought in, and got a raft of sympathetic stories in the press.

From a purely abstract point of view, lowering fines is the right thing to do. Punishments should be high enough to deter lawbreaking, but don't need to be higher just to punish. A lot of people believe, despite academic evidence to the contrary, that cranking up punishments fights crime or unsafe driving; past a certain point, it doesn't.

From a political point of view, on the other hand, it's worth doing this right thing if it achieves a greater goal. Expanding cameras, and making streets safer, should be that goal. If the bill sets aside a fund for MPD to buy more cameras, that could significantly streamline the process.

If lowering fines blunts political blowback, that's worth a lot. However, if speeders still complain, and AAA's Townsend will continue to say anything to get attention in the press regardless of lower fines, then lower fines would just give dangerous lawbreakers a windfall for little benefit.

At the task force meetings, participants expressed a desire to keep higher fines for these. They felt that more excessive speeding is far more reckless and not something one can chalk up to not paying close attention, or a road designed for a too-high speed, or something like that.

For red lights, the task force heard evidence that while there isn't a relationship between the size of speed fines and compliance, there is one for red lights. Many felt that running red lights is something drivers more clearly recognize is wrong. I've still heard drivers argue that running a red light is better than coming to a stop because of the risk of getting rear-ended, or dispute the timings of yellow lights, but MPD's Lisa Sutter said that she is focusing on enforcing the more egregious red light running.

DC is going to start rolling out cameras for some of these infractions which don't have cameras now, like not yielding to pedestrians. Many drivers don't understand that it's wrong to make a turn quickly across a crosswalk and block a pedestrian's path. MPD has promised a substantial public information campaign, but an appropriate level of fine will hopefully ensure that there isn't too much backlash against stopping this very dangerous behavior.

Bill proposes 30-day warning period

Under the bill, every vehicle will get one warning period. The first time the vehicle gets an automated ticket, MPD will send the owner a notice about the ticket and more information on the kinds of infractions that cameras catch. They will then get 7 days after the letter gets mailed, or 30 days after the initial violation, as a grace period.

I had suggested an approach like this in the meetings, because some people have said they got 9 speeding tickets all in a couple of weeks and then found themselves owing over $1,000 before they even found out about the first ticket. If the purpose of the program is to stop speeding, there's no point in giving someone multiple tickets at once.

On the other hand, this could significantly cut into revenue, especially since most violations are from vehicles that only violate once. Many of those might be casual visitors to the District, and one could argue both sides about whether we ought to give expensive tickets to tourists who drive recklessly.

There won't be a separate warning for speeding versus blocking the box; a driver just gets one warning, total. Shared cars and rental cars won't get new warnings for new drivers.

Half of revenue would go to safety programs

One of the most important provisions of the bill is one dedicating half of the revenue from the camera program to safety programs. Some of the revenue can go toward MPD buying new cameras. This is critical, because the best way to reduce unsafe driving is to have greater "certainty of enforcement"—a higher chance of getting caught in more places. More cameras is what justifies lower fines.

It took MPD years to get budget approval to buy the upcoming set of cameras. For the program to really improve safety, that has to change, and this bill would make it easier for MPD to buy more cameras.

Money will also go toward educating drivers, possibly setting up a traffic safety unit at MPD, or projects at DDOT to redesign the roadway. The best way to cut down on speeding is to design a road that gives drivers subtle cues that a slower speed is appropriate, instead of one that encourages faster speeds.

Hearing is November 5

Councilmember Cheh already has scheduled a hearing for November 5, 11:00 am in room 412 of the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. You can sign up to testify using this form.

What do you think of the bill?

Maintenance facility decisions fell through at the last minute

Some have charged that the association's true goal is to stop the streetcar entirely. Unfortunately, DDOT made this snafu possible by really blowing the planning for the maintenance facility for the H Street line.

Former streetcar head Scott Kubly spent years believing that the agency could put the facility in the underpass below the Union Station tracks, but Amtrak ultimately decided to use the space for its own Union Station plan.

At that point, DDOT turned around and said they would put the facility at Spingarn, because that's the only place they could get approval quickly enough. A far better choice would be the edge of the massive parking lots at RFK stadium, but that is federal land, which DC controls but can only use for recreational purposes.

WMATA was able to build the Orange and Blue Line through the parking lots on a long ramp from underground to a bridge over the river, and one can certainly argue whether giant parking lots are really a recreational use. Still, any effort to get permission for a car barn would be complex and take a long time.

It's hard to really fault area residents who are frustrated that DDOT didn't pursue alternatives for the car barn location, then had to put it at Spingarn because it didn't have time to pursue any alternatives.

Will car barns look attractive?

The very industrial look in DDOT's early sketches also doesn't do much to assuage residents' fears. DDOT now says they will be designing a more attractive facility that fits better with Spingarn's historic architecture. They should, but can residents feel confident a better design will actually come to pass?

Sketch of possible car barn. Image from DDOT.

DDOT is finishing the line under a design-build contract, which includes the maintenance facility. In a design-build process, DDOT picks a contractor and then works with that contractor to work out design details as they go. This can significantly speed up projects, but it doesn't always allow for a lot of public participation or transparency. A lot of details of the 11th Street Bridge project remained somewhat vague until very late in the process, often far too late to change anything.

DDOT spokesperson John Lisle says that the contractor has "commenced" the design process for the facility, and that "Additional opportunities for public participation/feedback will be scheduled over the next 90-120 calendar days." We just have to hope that this process is more participatory than DDOT's last few efforts, and gives residents real choices.

If DDOT ends up only offering unattractive designs and says they are the only possibilities because of the short time frame or limited budget, it will only validate the arguments of those who seek to landmark Spingarn.

Streetcar planning has been limited or secret

The fact is that most large transportation projects involve a lot of different pieces, and an agency must either plow ahead knowing it will probably encounter some hiccups, or the project may never get done.

Still, it has been years since DDOT promised to flesh out details of the streetcar system, with almost no progress. The agency promised a plan for financing the streetcar, and also for how it will procure cars that can run without overhead wires at least in key viewsheds. Bellamy alluded to a lot of work getting done on these issues at the hearing, but has never actually shared any of that work with the public.

The Committee of 100 has been arguing for such plans. They initially wanted to halt progress on the project until DDOT finished the plans. That could have killed the streetcar, and we pushed hard at that time to let DDOT keep moving forward. As the years pass without any more details, however, I find it harder to keep justifying this approach.

Business groups have been talking about setting up a "value capture" mechanism that applies some of the real estate appreciation, which the streetcar brings, toward financing the lines. The farther DDOT goes down the path of planning new lines, the harder it will be to set something like this up. Already, as Cheh pointed out in the hearing, it may be too late to do this on H Street.

Similarly, where will future maintenance facilities go? For some other lines, the best locations might take time to secure permission and build community support. DDOT needs to start far sooner than it did with Spingarn to plan for these locations and create designs that satisfy neighbors.

Cheh also harangued DDOT for dragging its feet on a governance plan. When the council approved the streetcar plan, it required DDOT to study and report on options for what authority or board would control the streetcar system in the long term. Bellamy has come to multiple hearings promising that such a report was just around the corner, but then nothing happened.

Today, he said they had such a report, but some unnamed "stakeholders" had asked DDOT to hold off on releasing it. When Cheh threatened to withhold a key authorization, however, Bellamy promised to give her staff copies of the draft report. Why can't the public see this report?

DDOT might be doing a lot of work behind the scenes, but it's high time the conversation moved out into public view. Former director Gabe Klein was moving very rapidly on the streetcar, sometimes so much so that he smashed headlong into some obstacles, but he and Kubly also were forthright with residents about the way they were operating. They also built public support for the streetcar program by sharing details and progress regularly.

As we saw with the battles over streetcar funding and council authorization in 2010 and 2011, residents eager for this very important project will forgive a lot of mistakes as long as they know what is happening. With a more secretive approach of late, DDOT risks squandering a lot of the enthusiasm from residents outside the line's immediate area.

That would be a shame, because the streetcar is an important project to shape the future of the District. We can't build Metrorail everywhere it doesn't serve today. A streetcar can stimulate transit-oriented growth that buses simply don't, but if the line doesn't work well, the maintenance facility looks ugly, or a value capture mechanism for funding never comes together, neighborhoods outside H Street will either oppose or never get streetcars of their own.

We do not need the same regulation for dispatch cab trips. These cabs do need regulation to ensure they are safe, and that they serve all parts of the city and people with disabilities. A café needs regular health inspections to ensure that it does not poison its customers, but not regulation to specify the color of the counters, or the format of the receipts, or approval for every new dish on the menu.

Yet the Taxicab Commission's proposed regulations do just that, requiring, among other things, that any reservation service have an office in DC with a sign, a receptionist during business hours, and even specifically "office furniture." They micro-manage the technology in the cars, how customers get receipts, and elements of the pricing system.

Taxi Commission Chairman Ron Linton says he needs these rules to ensure that riders don't get overcharged, for instance. That's a laudable goal, but do we need the Taxicab Commission to ensure that? Restaurants don't have the same level of price oversight, and they don't overcharge people for a very simple reason: if they do, diners will complain. If the error doesn't get fixed, they won't go back, and will spread the word, harming the restaurant's reputation.

With the traditional taxicab model, riders are not repeat customers of individual cabs, so drivers have little disincentive to cheating a rider except the threat of enforcement action from the Commission. A reservation service, by contrast, relies on repeat customers and on its reputation, so it will take action on its own against misbehaving drivers, to persuade them to act properly and drop drivers from its service when needed.

This puts more power into the hands of individuals. They can pick a dispatch service or taxi fleet that provides quality service. If they aren't happy with the ride, they can pick a different company in the future. This power makes it less necessary for the Commission to specify detailed operating procedures or monitor performance.

Uber has not always made itself easy to support. They have chosen, now three times this year, to rile up supporters through statements which were at times misinformed or misleading. Some of their statements misstate the specifics of proposed laws or regulations, while others conceal the ways they were working with lawmakers and regulators.

However, creating an innovative marketplace is not about supporting Uber or not supporting them. It's about creating an environment for many independent dispatch services. If Uber simply supplants traditional taxis, riders will not necessarily be better off. They might have higher quality rides, but at a higher price, and without much more choice.

If, on the other hand, DC ultimately has 5 or 10 separate, competing dispatch services, there will be every incentive to improve service and keep prices low. That is the end toward which our public policy must aim. If the Taxicab Commission is not willing to create regulations in this spirit, the council should step in.

My (somewhat whimsically-formatted) testimony is here.

Traffic cameras work

The task force had its first meeting yesterday. I am a member of the task force, at the request of co-chairman Councilmember Mary Cheh. Sutter presented a number of slides, including this chart of traffic fatalities:

Sutter also relayed a tragic story of an elderly woman killed in a crash that one of their cameras caught on video. A driver blew through a red light and got T-boned. The crash pushed the car up onto the sidewalk, killing the woman, who wasn't breaking any laws and wasn't even in the street.

This is the real human toll of unsafe driving. More people died already this year, just in the District, than in the Metro Red Line crash. We can't ignore the problem.

Can science set the fine?

The other co-chair, Tommy Wells, started off the meeting with a statement that he feels the current fines are too high, and contribute to the public perception that the cameras are a source of revenue rather than a safety tool. Cheh agreed with the goal of revising the fines, but added that they serve several purposes.

One is to simply deter people from "reckless and unsafe behavior." Relatedly, a fine is a kind of punishment for doing something inherently dangerous, as red-light running is, she said. Ultimately, the fine needs to change a culture of lawbreaking, and sometimes a high penalty might be necessary.

Cheh and Wells asked many thoughtful and detailed questions to try to identify a proper level for a fine. Wells pointed out that it could be very helpful if photo tickets included an explanation of why the District is charging what it's charging.

AU Professor Laura Langbein suggested an analysis which would estimate the economic and actuarial cost of the typical crash, then divide that by the chance any individual speeding or red light running would end in a crash, to get an optimal fine. That would peg a fine to the damage the behavior causes. Another approach would be to set the level around what it takes to get people to comply, but it may be hard to determine that scientifically other than through experimentation.

Where is AAA?

The task force included a representative from regional towing-services company AAA Mid-Atlantic, John Townsend. Unfortunately, he seemed little interested in any real meeting of the minds. He didn't even participate in the first half of the meeting, when people were mainly asking questions to MPD and DDOT about the current program. Instead, he left the table for a while to go talk to the press and get himself into news stories on the issue.

Later, Townsend criticized DC's plans to add cameras to catch people who blow through stop signs or recklessly turn across crosswalks where people on foot are crossing. These are serious safety issues in neighborhoods. If cameras can curb unsafe driving as much as they have for speeding and red light running, it can save lives and boost the quality of life in neighborhoods.

DC will only have 2-3 per ward of each type in the coming year, and I'd like to see any bill in the Council around fines also give MPD authority to buy more cameras with some of the money they raise from existing ones.

I also recommended that we discuss how to curb speeding under 10 mph over the limit. When a neighborhood limit is 30, most drivers assume that really means 40. 40 can be a dangerous speed in residential areas. MPD's Lisa Sutter confirmed that while DC law allows MPD to ticket people for speeding less than 10 mph, they are not currently doing that with the automated cameras.

Some cities are lowering the limits to 20 in order to get drivers to stay under 30, but is that the best approach? A $75 ticket for going 32 in a 30 would be grossly unfair, but how about a $5 ticket for going 5 mph over? Or how about a $1 ticket? Can a small "nudge" change the culture from 30-means-40 to 30-means-30?

That also might mean raising some speed limits, if transportation departments have set limits artificially low. James Cheeks from DDOT said that they never set speed limits 10 mph too low because of this, but many commenters believe that at least some jurisdictions do.

Unfortunately, Townsend immediately jumped in to call the idea of any enforcement below 10 mph over the limit "a non-starter." It sounds like he came to the meeting expecting that the only outcome would be to give drivers more of a pass for unsafe behavior.

I agree fines can come down as the number of cameras increases. However, it's not appropriate simply to cater to the whining and lower the fines unilaterally. Will lower fines actually make drivers believe the fines are for safety instead of revenue?

Many speeders will take their cue from their chief enabler, Townsend. He can set an example by agreeing to stop the constant camera complaints if fines come down. He says AAA doesn't condone breaking traffic laws or unsafe driving. Will he start being constructive, or is his real goal just to get attention and feed the egos of those who don't want to change their dangerous behavior?

Cheh said she "hopes to introduce a bill before the end of the year that puts scooters and motorcycles in different, easy-to-understand categories," according to the article.

"Hope" is an ambiguous word, so I reached out to Cheh's senior policy advisor William Handsfield to get more clarity on when we might see a piece of legislation.

"We've been thinking about it a lot, but I don't think there are any clear cut answers," Handsfield wrote in an email. "We'll be doing more on this topic soon, as the status quo is unsatisfactory."

Parking is biggest issue

While the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is "responsible for classifying vehicles and determining registration requirements," the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) sets parking rules based on those classifications, said Monica Hernandez, a communications specialist for DDOT, in an email.

In addition to evaluating the policies in place, DDOT is developing a program to create on-street scooter spaces, Hernandez wrote.

Handsfield mentioned that, while at DDOT, he headed a program which installed on-street bike racks around the city. "In the two years since we installed those racks, we've noticed that scooter owners often lock up there as well, which I think most would agree is preferential to scooters on the sidewalk," he wrote.

A quick search turned up articles about on-street racks being installed in numerous cities around the country, including New York and Seattle. In DC, it's illegal for scooters to park in bicycle racks.

In the comments on my earlier post, David C wrote,

We discussed the issue of scooters/bikes at a Bicycle Advisory Committee meeting. ... For parking we decided that we really didn't care if they parked at bike racks. We just need a lot more bike racks. But we don't think they should be riding in the bike lane.

"The problem is that... they're written by people who don't ride," Scott said. "Scooter theft in the city is a huge issue."

He proposed a sidewalk parking permit as a way to address the issue of scooter owners needing to secure their scooter while also providing a source of revenue for the city.

Scott doesn't support a wide-scale change to the laws on the books, and says that riders have to bear some blame, especially in Goodman's case. "People choose to read the laws now the way they want them to read," said Scott, an attorney. "I hear about customers getting arrested all the time."

He said that some prospective owners are deterred by the complexity and strictness of the laws, though that's not necessarily a bad thing. "What's important to me is to have people who are licensed and insured on the road," Scott said.

Uber claims their service is legal. Cheh's amendments would have made it unambiguously legal, but only so long as the service charges 5 times the price of a taxi for the "flag drop," the initial amount on the meter at the start of a ride. Perhaps not surprisingly, Uber's flag drop charge was exactly 5 times the current taxi flag drop fee.

The political details have been reported widely in the press. Uber members flooded Council inboxes, and Jack Evans (Ward 2) claimed to have received 5,000 emails. A number of councilmembers, like David Catania (at-large), said they didn't want to be setting policy around protecting the taxi industry, while Marion Barry (Ward 8) stood with taxi drivers.

Cheh decided to pull her amendments to give her a chance to rework them, likely in consultation with Uber. She said she did consult with Uber and thought they had a compromise; Uber's CEO says they never agreed to this language.

This story is a classic case of Silicon Valley meets Washington, even more literally than usual. Many startup companies encounter the world of laws, lobbying and legislation and find the culture gap baffling. It's not just Congress (which, for that matter, steps all over the District of Columbia government all the time); it's state legislators too, like the California state senators who tried to ban Gmail when it came out.

Often in these kinds of cases, everyone means well. Cheh is one of the Council's most thoughtful members and a strong supporter of transportation choices. She's no enemy of innovation; her staff organized a ride in Google's self-driving car and she raved about the experience.

The permission model or the innovation model?

But there is still a culture gap here. Specifically, there are two ways of thinking about how business meets law: the permission model and the innovation model. In one, there's some gatekeeper that has set out a list of things you can do and things you can't. If you want to do something different that nobody has done, you can get permission from that gatekeeper to allow it, if it has enough merit and/or you have enough influence. In the other, you can do what you want, unless it's so harmful that someone takes action to stop you.

Neither model is really purer or more original than the other. Some businesses have always worked according to one type, others in another. Mercantile England gave charters to companies to settle and trade in the New World. And the gatekeeper is not always the government. For instance, food marketing has always been more of a permission model: in order to get anyone to sell your new food, you have to get grocery stores to give it space on shelves, which generally means paying them.

Television has also always been a permission model. The first television networks got the rights to broadcast on certain frequencies from the government, which was the gatekeeper deciding which companies could be broadcasters and which couldn't. But when cable came along, the cable companies became the gatekeepers, and now they negotiate with channels about carrying their content or not; periodically, these negotiations spill out publicly when a channel runs ads saying that a cable company is going to cut off customers' access to that content.

Zoning converted an innovation model—you could build whatever you wanted—into a permission model where you have to get the okay from a zoning board to build something outside set parameters. The early frontier was more of an innovation model, where land was just about free and you could go set up a farm without having to buy someone else's land first.

The innovation model built Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley enjoyed the innovation model for a very long time. The Internet and protocols like TCP/IP and email, developed by academics, allowed anyone on one system to connect to any other system and share information. People could build websites that didn't need to get permission from the equivalent of the cable company. AOL and similar services had a more cable-like online offering at first, but the open Internet won out because users preferred it.

That's starting to change in a few ways. One is that fewer cable and phone companies control access to subscribers, and are starting to try giving some favored applications more privileges, especially to get around data caps, than others. A second is patents.

Patents turn an innovation system into a permission system by carving up the space of possible things you could do but haven't yet, and giving them to anyone who comes along and pays a fee to grab that piece of idea land. Patents don't stop someone from building a product, but they do force them to check with everyone who has patents in the area first and get their permission.

That impedes someone from building a better website that effectively competes with an existing one. It even stops organizations like transit agencies from doing the mostly-obvious, like letting riders track trains and buses in real time, because a "patent troll" has the patent and wants to extract money from anyone stepping nearby.

A number of technology/policy/economics writers, like Tim Lee, have been talking about the destructive effects of patents for some time, but running into resistance from an interesting quarter: lawyers. It seems that most lawyers, accustomed to the world of law where everything is set up with a rule, find the permission system of patents more familiar and comfortable than the innovation model. The problem is, familiar doesn't mean good; patents are slowing down Silicon Valley and favoring large, established companies.

Uber brings the innovation model to permission-oriented taxi regulations

What does this have to do with Uber? The Cheh amendment seems to be a standard regulatory approach. Uber may be illegal now. Pass a law that lets them do what they are doing. But to minimize the impact, limit the law to only let them do what they do now, and not just anything; if they want to do something else, maybe there can be another law.

Uber is coming at this from the Silicon Valley angle. Just do something and see if people like it. If they do, grow it. They understandably chafe at being given a box that circumscribes their existing business model but also walls off potential future directions they might evolve.

Riders also don't benefit from these rules. If Uber can compete with taxis, why not? Most people feel taxis could be a lot more comfortable, have better technology, and be safer. Giving riders more choices could mean some taxi companies thrive and others go out of business. That's competition, and it's healthy.

Cheh's bill also tried to address these taxi problems. It included provisions to force taxis to upgrade their equipment, start taking credit cards, and more. But it went about that, again, in a regulatory way. Rather than setting some standards (or just encouraging competition), it gave an exclusive contract to one company to put one set of technology in all cabs. That doesn't foster as much innovation as the alternative since the winner has the exclusive right to make the only product in this space.

The best way to improve taxis is to help riders find the best ones. Smartphone apps can start to do this and more and more people across the income spectrum are starting to have smartphones. As I recommended in a Post op-ed in January, let's allow any company that meets certain minimum requirements to pick up customers who phone in or use a smartphone app. Hailing a cab on the street can keep working like it does today.

The one necessary element is to demand that each competing company publish its rates ahead of time in an open format. Then, riders can use one of many apps (which can themselves compete) to compare taxi rates and pick a cab company.

It's not the regulatory, permission-based way of solving the problem, but it's the one that will foster the most competition, innovation, and value for riders.

Update: 2 additional brief points.

First, some Council staffers say Cheh's office really did believe they had an agreement from Uber. Uber's email, which just said the Council was trying to set a price floor without mentioning that it was also trying to eliminate the legal gray area, wasn't entirely forthcoming with all the facts.

It's not yet clear that Uber didn't just decide they didn't like the result of negotiations and could use political muscle instead. That's their right, of course, but something we should recognize.

Second, taxis are a regulated industry today. An innovation model might be better, but most taxis don't operate on one. It is indeed unfair to put a lot of regulations on one group of businesses in a space (the traditional taxis) and none on others (Uber).

My preference would be to move the industry more away from regulation and toward an innovation model instead of vice versa, but it's reasonable for taxis to ask to compete on a level playing field.

To: Members of the Council of the District of Columbia
From: Councilmember Mary M. Cheh
Date: May 14, 2012
Subject: The District's Fiscal Year 2013 Budget

Tomorrow, we will take our first vote on the Fiscal Year 2013 budget. To encourage transparency and open debate, this memorandum provides a summary of all budget recommendations from my office. The recommendations are divided into Committee and Non-Committee proposals.

Committee Recommendations

1. Prohibit the sale of gasoline in the District beginning January 1, 2014. In the interim, the District shall raise its excise tax on gasoline from $0.235 to $8.75, which we are told represents roughly 50% of the jobbers' current markup on motor fuel in the District. Revenues from the tax shall be converted into capital dollars for the construction of a hydrogen automobile factory. Beginning January 1, 2014, hydrogen may only be purchased from stations operated by small and disadvantaged businesses grossing less than $777.9 million annually (or whatever Capitol Petroleum's gross revenue may be at that time).

2. Convert $12,000,000 from the District Department of the Environment's operating budget into capital dollars to fund the construction of a new shelter. The new shelter, known as the "Cheh Rat Sanctuary," will be open to families of rodents who have been forcibly relocated. At the shelter, they will be able to live together in peace and without fear of being exterminated. Based upon discussions at the "Rat Summit of 2012," the Virginia Attorney General offered to house the sanctuary on his Fairfax estate. We are awaiting further communications with the Virginia Attorney General's office and are preparing an MOU to facilitate the interstate transfer of funds.

3. Related to number 2 above, create a special purpose fund for fees collected as part of a new written examination to be administered to states' Attorneys General of other jurisdictions. The examination will measure knowledge of constitutional law and basic reading skills, and a passing score will be required for each Attorney General who wishes to opine on District matters. Sample questions may include: "Which of the following sentences does not include the word 'rat'?" Proceeds from the fund shall be used to establish public grief counseling units for rats and other commensal rodents who have lost family through pest control. The fund shall be managed by the District Department of the Environment.

4. Transfer $250,000 from the Department of Motor Vehicles' Adjudication Services to a newly created Global Positioning System (GPS) person-tracking program. Through the program, select individuals will be asked to wear GPS-powered, "District-loyalty" ankle bracelets used to implement the following requirements:

Council Members shall be barred from outside vacationing. Elected officials—particularly those with second jobs—should not waste valuable time and potential tax dollars vacationing in other jurisdictions. Moreover, a member may become beholden to a Hampton Inn in Maryland, whose free breakfast policy creates an obvious conflict of interest and may run afoul of the new ethics rules if the member chooses to have a second free waffle. The change should also boost tourism as vacationing members can highlight many of the District's top destinations and activities. Sample activities include touring archeological sites in Spring Valley, taking advantage of natural exfoliation in the Anacostia River, enjoying a mud bath at Blue Plains, or watching a filibuster in the U.S. Senate or at an ANC meeting.

Establish a residency requirement for the Washington Post's editorial board. This requirement is expected to generate tax revenues from new residents and additional tax revenues from whichever entity is now hired to perform public relations for former Mayor Adrian Fenty.

5. Transfer $25,000 in capital dollars to the District Department of Motor Vehicles. The funds will be used to establish a new, state-of-the-art, customer queue management system. All residents seeking DMV services will participate in mandatory BINGO games. When a patron achieves BINGO, s/he will become next in line for DMV services. The measure is expected to improve customer enjoyment at DMV and to decrease the average wait time by three hours and seventeen minutes.

Non-Committee Recommendations

1. Transfer 95% of all Council Committee budgets and FTEs to the Committee of the Whole. To maximize efficiencies and streamline the government, the following additional functions will now fall under the Committee of the Whole: Public Services, Consumer Affairs, Government Operations, the Environment, Public Works, Transportation, Planning, Economic Development, Housing, Workforce Development, Tax and Revenue, Health, Human Services, the Judiciary, Small Business, and Aging. The following areas shall be divided up among the other Council Committees at future date to be determined: the Office of Cable Television, the Office of Risk Management, the Boxing Commission, the Bicycle Advisory Council, and the Department of Parks and Recreation. In order to allow members to spend more time focusing on their revised committee responsibilities, the Committee of the Whole will now include only the following members: the Council Chairman.

3. Add a new requirement for the Council as part of the Budget Support Act. Recently, the Council passed legislation requiring all students to apply to at least one college in order "to raise expectations for students, and create a culture of academic excellence and success in District schools." Add a new BSA provision requiring all Council Members to apply to at least one job in order to raise expectations for members, and create a culture of professional excellence and success in District government. The measure is expected to be budget neutral.

4. Beginning October 1, 2012, Council Members who use profane language shall be required to deposit five cents into a special purpose non-lapsing fund, designated as the Saying Words Egregious to Aural Recipients by Juvenile Actors Reacting, or SWEAR JAR. Funds shall be distributed to DCPS schools to offset the $17 million shortfall for the IMPACT teacher evaluation system caused by the loss of private grant funds. After the first $17 million is provided to DCPS schools, remaining funds shall used to purchase ear muffs for use at Council breakfasts.

5. Transfer $3,000 from the Department of General Services maintenance fund to be used for marketing. As the District government continues to "right size," vacant District-owned property represents untapped income. Therefore, I am recommend allocating $3,000 to advertise available office space in the Wilson Building. With minimal outreach, we have already successfully leased a vacant suite of offices on the first floor of the building to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Washington Field Office. With just a bit more outreach, I believe we could easily fill other vacant spaces as well. For example, I understand that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is exploring some additional space in the basement and expects to conclude negotiations soon.

6. Establish the Resident Relocation Fund, a new special purpose fund. Some residents simply are not well suited to live in a major city. They fear sidewalks, bicycles, traffic, noise, parking, and university dormitories. To address their growing list of concerns, we shall establish the Resident Relocation Fund, which will subsidize the costs of these folks moving outside of the District and include a complimentary municipal bond, untaxed, from the jurisdiction of the ex-resident's choice.

7. Add a further amendment to the BSA. With the passage of B19-0474, the Lottery Amendment Repeal Amendment Act of 2012, the District gave up millions of dollars in potential revenue. Much of our concern related to the iGaming contract stemmed from the lack of transparency in the bidding process. To remedy that problem, add a BSA provision that would once again put an internet-based gaming system out for contract, but with the added mandate that the payment for that contract be made only with money orders. In doing so, the District will enhance its revenue stream while ensuring a clear and easily traceable contract process.

Should you have any questions about the below measures, please take a hard look in the mirror. The ideas here are brilliant and need no further explication. Please do not contact my staff or me with your questions or concerns.

Performance parking money goes to neighborhoods and bus priority

Mayor Gray had proposed ending the practice, which the original performance parking pilot zones established, of putting some parking money toward projects in the local neighborhood. The committee restored that in part. Now, if a performance parking zone raises extra mone over its "baseline" revenue from before performance parking, half of that money can go toward transportation projects in that neighborhood.

In other words, if DDOT extends meter hours or raises rates, half of the extra revenue from that change can go to local projects. Before, just setting up a performance parking zone meant that 75% of the total revenue, including the preexisting revenue, went to the neighborhood (though, in some cases, some of that revenue had to pay for new meters). The neighborhoods with performance parking got to spend some money right off the bat, even if DDOT never tweaked meter rates and hours. And in some of the zones, DDOT took a painfully long time to do so.

What about the other half of the money? The committee's budget probably dedicates that to bus priority improvements.

While DDOT needs to do its utmost to make the H Street streetcar a success and lay the groundwork for future lines, streetcars won't go everywhere and won't magically solve all of DC's transportation problems. The District spends $190 million per year to subsidize on bus service, yet many buses spend a lot of time in traffic and many people don't want to ride a bus that's not the Circulator.

Reducing bus delay could save a lot of money and draw more riders to the bus system. The many Metrobus line studies came up with countless recommendations for how to make service better: moving a stop across the street, changing a turn signal to help buses through a rough spot, improving enforcement to avoid illegal loading, adding a bus lane, and so on.

Funds depend on DDOT implementing performance parking

A dedicated pot of money will push DDOT to move ahead with these important changes. These projects won't have to compete with others for money. That assumes there is money, though. Before any money goes to bus improvements, WMATA gets about $30 million for existing bus operations. The CFO's office estimates that DC's meters today will almost cover that. DDOT is upgrading old meters to newer ones with better technology that break less and therefore are less likely to lose revenue; the WMATA payment also assumes that those upgrades continue.

If DDOT goes ahead with the upgrades and then starts managing its curbside space more efficiently, the meter revenue will surpass the $30 million mark. Local neighborhoods and bus priority projects will get funded. If the meter upgrades get delayed and DDOT doesn't tweak rates and hours, it could fall short, and both neighborhoods and bus priority could end up with nothing for the year.

An amendment from Tommy Wells at the markup specifically asks DDOT to make bus priority improvements on downtown segments of H and I streets a top priority for the money. WMATA has said that this congested area forms a major bottleneck for bus routes from all parts of the District; bus lanes here could do the most to reduce delays. A consultant is currently studying traffic operations along H and I, and their report will help DDOT design the lanes to best move bus traffic and minimize the amount of extra delay for drivers.

To help get performance parking moving downtown, the legislation specifically instructs DDOT to work on performance parking with DC Surface Transit, the business-led group that was been instrumental in bringing in the Circulator and promoting the streetcar. DCST and downtown businesses have been eager for performance parking.

Other changes in the budget

The budget also takes steps to restore the pedestrian and bicycle enhancement fund, which pays for a number of smaller pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure projects. In addition, $100,000 comes from the Committee on Libraries, Parks, Recreation and Planning to fund a new volunteer Trail Ranger program, similar to one in Denver. The money pays for a grant to an organization like WABA to manage that program.

The committee asked DDOT to use federal funds to redo the streetscape on Florida Avenue between 2nd and 10th Streets NE. Florida Avenue is wider here than elsewhere, but the sidewalk is far too narrow even though it adjoins the growing NoMa district and Gallaudet students often walk along the road. DDOT has already acknowledged in an earlier study that the sidewalk needs to be better here.

Finally, the budget takes a little bit out of transportation to fund a few of Cheh's other priorities, including a program encouraging food stamp recipients to buy food at farmers' markets ($50,000), help fund the Office of Campaign Finance ($100,000), and a tax break for a homeless services organization ($10,800).

A good budget gets better

Mayor Gray's original DDOT budget was an excellent proposal. It funded the streetcar, preserved Metro service, and took the very significant step of pushing for performance parking citywide. Gray made it clear that he stands behind initiatives that enhance walking, bicycling, and transit.

The way the budget used parking meter revenue was the biggest issue council staff had with the budget. The Mayor's proposal sent all parking meter revenue straight to WMATA. It's great to fund transit, but the problem with this approach is that DC doesn't just give more or less to WMATA as money is available; its commitment gets set in the WMATA budget.

Far more money comes from the general fund for WMATA, and a small amount from meters. As meter revenue increased, it would just have replaced general fund support. That would have only fueled the criticism that performance parking is just a way to raise money.

Perfromance parking is best when local neighborhoods also get a benefit from meter changes, and when money goes toward improving the other ways shoppers, diners, office workers and others can travel to an area besides driving and parking. The commitee's budget restores that nexus. Money DDOT raises from changing parking will directly help fund programs that make neighborhoods either easier to get to or more attractive.

This budget recommendation will next go to the entire council as part of the overall budget debate. The council should preserve what the committee has done.