OPINION:
Only a month remains before traffic deaths are finally eliminated in the District.
That’s what local politicians promised when they launched their revolutionary Vision Zero traffic safety initiative in 2015.
Slashing speed limits, peppering neighborhoods with speed bumps and stationing automated enforcement cameras on every street corner would eliminate traffic deaths by 2024, they said.
Instead, D.C. traffic fatalities spiked 35% in the first half of the year. Naturally, the city retooled its plan in light of the disappointing result. The new Vision Zero agenda? More of the same.
The District Department of Transportation, or DDOT, recently allowed Verra Mobility, the mercenary firm that owns and operates all aspects of the camera program, to set up 29 more automated speed traps. Each of the devices is capable of generating between $100 and $500 per flash, and that adds up quickly. As Axios reported on Monday, the seven most successful cameras raked in seven-figure profits in the first half of the year.
The top prize went to the notorious robotic camera on Interstate 295 in Southeast Washington, which, based on its six-month performance, could start the new year having raised just shy of $8 million.
DDOT’s news release insists that these locations were carefully chosen to find the “sites where data analysis has identified Speeding as a safety issue.”
Such a claim might seem plausible if the District’s profit-seeking vendor weren’t behind the analysis, discovering areas with high traffic volumes and unrealistically low speed limits — exactly what is needed to enhance the company’s and the city’s bottom lines.
Mayor Muriel Bowser’s budget labels the Automated Traffic Enforcement Program a “Nontax Revenue Policy Proposal,” coldly calculating the bolstered camera network will create a $577,770,000 windfall through fiscal 2027.
Naturally, not everyone will pay into the fund. The cameras are strategically placed to disproportionately target Maryland and Virginia commuters, who have no voice in D.C politics. Ms. Bowser takes the District’s “taxation without representation” license plate slogan literally.
There’s not much the District can do if those outsiders discard the official-looking citation they received in the mail from Verra Mobility. Knowing this, the D.C. Council is poised to address the oversight. Councilmember-at-large Christina Henderson and four of her colleagues are pushing an ordinance that would instruct insurers to raise the premiums of all photo ticket recipients.
This development brings cheer to the insurance industry, which has invested tens of millions of dollars over the past several decades promoting the speed camera racket as a “safety initiative.”
But the proposal drew a frown from Gabriel Robinson, the District Department of Motor Vehicles chief, who raised a number of concerns in a November hearing on the scheme.
“It should be noted that a resident does not need a driver license to title and register a vehicle in the District of Columbia,” Mr. Robinson said. “A resident who has a non-driver identification card may title and register a vehicle in the District, so this bill would have no impact on this population, as points cannot be assessed to a non-driver identification card.”
As long as the right population is affected, the only vision city planners have is of an ever-expanding municipal bank account.
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