ASK THE TIMES: Why Not Use the Old Red Light Cameras?

A reader asks:

I can’t believe we have to purchase new red light cameras when the old ones are sitting on the poles right now. Why can’t we use the old system? Sounds like this wasn’t thought out completely.

We passed this question to City Manager Wyatt Shields. While we were at it, we asked him when and where the new cameras will be installed.

Shields responded:

The private contractor that installed, maintained, and operated the camera system from 2002-2006 did not compete for the contract to operate the new system when we put it out for bid this year.

Why not use the old poles and equipment already in place? That might happen. The new operator, American Traffic Solutions, has the option to use the old poles if they meet their needs and specifications. They have also agreed that if in the future we want to move the equipment to different intersections, they will do so at no charge.

There are many changes to Virginia law that have made the installation of the system more complicated this time around.

Under the new contract, which is governed by new state law provisions, the City will pay a fixed fee per month per intersection for the operation of the system. The total annual cost will be $350,000, which we anticipate to be fully offset by revenues from violations.

The private contractor’s role is to provide the City with images of potential red light violations. These images are reviewed by a City police officer for a determination if a red light running violation has occurred.

Violations may be contested in general district court. Fines for red light running under this photo red program will be $50. Violations are not counted against your driving record for insurance purposes.

Most importantly, our experience in the prior period was that the installation of photo red enforcement cameras was correlated with a decrease in accidents in the intersections where they were installed. This has also been the finding of most studies on photo red enforcement around the country.

We expect to have the new photo red enforcement program operating this summer at the following intersections:

– West Broad and Birch

– West Broad and Annandale

– East Broad and Cherry

– South Washington and Marshall 

Have a question about the City that might be on fellow residents’ minds as well? Email your question here, and we’ll try to get an answer.

See also: City Installing 4 Red Light Cameras Costing $350,000

——————————————————————–

Previous ASK THE TIMES questions:

Rolling Carts for Heavy Recycling Loads?

Status of Hilton Garden Inn?

Questions about Northgate

Opinion: Washington Post Takes a Cheap Shot at GEORGE

I just read Monday’s editorial in the Washington Post (“A Bus to Nowhere”) about GEORGE, and I’m hopping mad.

Not because most of GEORGE’s failings listed in the Post aren’t true — they are.

No, it’s because, to someone who has followed GEORGE since the bus service began in 2002, and has written half a dozen stories about it, the Post’s hidden agenda is pretty transparent.

Let’s be real: two buses running a 2-mile circuit in a town of 11,000 people at an annual cost of $600,000 doesn’t merit headlines all over the United States and even a couple of foreign countries (see April 18 story below). It doesn’t even merit an editorial in the Washington Post, much less a newspaper all the way out in Las Vegas.

There’s more going on here, and it has nothing to do with GEORGE. And that’s still not even why I’m mad. People are entitled to their opinions, pro or con, on public transportation and government subsidies. And it’s the job of “special interests” to promote their points of view.

Here’s why I’m upset: The Washington Post has a long reputation for journalistic integrity. It isn’t some low-budget rag easily steamrolled by any smooth-talking lobbyist. Yet the Post editorial cites only one source: the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance.

The Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance is a well-funded lobby for the construction of more roads and bridges. The lobby works tirelessly for widening I-66, and attacks any politician who dares oppose that. That includes Councilman Dave Snyder, who coincidentally (?) came in for scorn in the Las Vegas newspaper’s editorial against GEORGE. Read more

Little GEORGE Bus Suddenly Infamous Around the World

The story of GEORGE — Falls Church City’s beleaguered commuter bus — exploded Friday in a shot heard ‘round the world as newspapers, tv, and radio stations featured a one-sided story by the Associated Press.

Los Angeles Times: “Taking taxpayers for a ride: Congressional bus experiment costs $8 per trip”

Washington Post: “Pricey bus test a bust”

The Miami Herald,  Boston Globe, and San Francisco Chronicle used the same headline as the Washington Post.

The London Guardian had no headline at all, but ran the same Associated Press story that is all over the United States.

The Ankara, Turkey, English-language Turkish Weekly ran it next to a story on Scottish sensation Susan Boyle.

The editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal got so exercised that they wrote an editorial assigning blame, starting with President Obama and concluding with Falls Church Councilman David Snyder:

“President Obama now wants us all to ride trains — just like in his beloved Europe — as a means of reducing our carbon footprint.”

Objectivity went downhill from there, with the editorial concluding that Snyder “sounds like a man angling for a spot in the Obama administration.”

As of Saturday morning almost everyone, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Newsday, WTOP, and more than 100 other media outlets had reported it.

The April 17 AP story by Matthew Barakat is more or less accurate, as far as it goes. But by leaving out crucial information it tells only one side of the story.

Most egregiously, the AP story links to the City’s website for the GEORGE service options presentation. But it’s the March 19 version — not the April 13 version, when City Manager Wyatt Shields revised the numbers and threw out the “$8 per ride” cost to City taxpayers.

The AP story says “Falls Church would have to pay as much as $600,000 to maintain service next year, according to city manager Wyatt Shields. Bus systems in the nearby suburbs of Fairfax, Alexandria and Arlington provide an average subsidy of $2 per ride or less. Shields recommends eliminating the service.”

Shields admitted last Monday at the City budget hearing that the claimed $600,000 cost to the City isn’t true, since half would be paid by state subsidies. And it’s not clear in the story whether the $2 “average subsidy” in nearby suburbs includes federal money.

The AP story leads with a “government waste” theme, built around information coming from an organization known as “Citizens Against Government Waste.”

According to Wikipedia, “Citizens Against Government Waste” was formed in 1984 by industrialist J. Peter Grace and syndicated columnist Jack Anderson. CAGW has generated a little controversy of its own over the years: According to the St. Petersburg Times, the group accepted money from tobacco interests and subsequently lobbied against a federal tobacco control initiative as “government pork.” Read more

Budget Part 3: The Citizens Speak (Still about GEORGE)

Carol DeLong, four-term Mayor in the 1980s, made an interesting point at the April 13 City Council budget hearing: “Time was, all you would hear at a budget hearing was about schools. Now all you’re hearing about is GEORGE (the City’s commuter bus service).

DeLong was right: nobody even mentioned schools — the pearl of great price, the City’s sacred treasure. Maybe that’s because the proposed budget is enough for “modest” pay raises for school staff.

Not so for the rest of the City’s employees, who get a pay freeze. Tennille Parker, employee spokesman, reminded Council of that, just for the record.

After that, it was all about GEORGE.

No, wait, first Councilman Dave Snyder spoke to “review my record on economic development.” Someone had been disparaging Snyder as “against” everything, so Snyder listed what he is “for” and what he is “against.” (See his FCT comment here.) “I wanted to make these points for the record so we can move on to other matters,” Snyder explained.

As noted, there was only one other matter, and it consumed the next two hours. Not surprisingly, regular riders turned out in defense of GEORGE, which the City proposed to discontinue. They had lots of ideas as well as criticism for the City.

Two speakers said they moved to the City specifically because GEORGE gives them easy access to the Metro. “I moved here six months ago,” said Sabina Rashpaul. “If GEORGE had not been available, I would have looked elsewhere.”

“Regular rider” Jay Majors said “I would be driving to West Falls Church without GEORGE, increasing traffic in the City.”

Carl Cucuci said GEORGE is “an amenity for the City that contributes to the quality of life.”

Richard Hipolit said it’s appropriate for government to subsidize public transportation. “I live in Poplar Forest — without GEORGE I’d be driving to the Metro.” He added his experience was that “when gas shot up, ridership increased drastically.”

“In the future,” said Elizabeth Fenton of South Virginia Avenue, “we’ll need the bus.”

The most poignant comment came from the Gibb family — father and daughter ride GEORGE together, she to school, he to work. “I don’t have that time with my daughter if GEORGE is gone,” Gibb said.

A Hillwood Avenue resident was “frustrated by the debate over facts and ridership at this late stage. I hope in the future there is more coordination with other agencies. It’s disturbing that you have to make a decision without all the facts on the table,” said Patrick Bracken.

Only one lone citizen ventured out on the rainy evening to dissent: “What are the compelling reasons to have GEORGE? I don’t see why we need our own intra-city bus service,” argued Charles Gonzales of West Broad.

And then there was Barry Buschow, the “pampered commuter” of Madison Lane: “This is the future for Falls Church, proposed back in 1987,” Buschow began, launching into a history of the City’s decades-long effort to establish a bus service. But a minute later the buzzer sounded, indicating his time was up. “That can’t be three minutes,” Bushow snapped at the timekeeper, Falls Church City Clerk Kathleen Buschow. “Sorry,” his wife apologized, to the amusement of the audience. (Read Buschow’s position here.)

Northern Virginia Transportation Commission Director Richard Taube told Council that “you’re on the right track,” but should consider:

– Marketing and promotion;

– Learning more about customers;

– Restructuring METRO to put more emphasis on GEORGE;

– Lowering rather than raising fares (or, lower off-peak fare and raise peak fare).

When it was all over, citizens for GEORGE appeared to be in alliance with a majority of Council, overcoming the initial direction of the Mayor and Vice Mayor, who suppported the City Manager’s plan to end GEORGE completely.

Budget Hearing Part 2: Everybody (?) Loves GEORGE

Everybody loves GEORGE — except Mayor Robin Gardner and Vice Mayor Hal Lippman. That was the sense coming out of the April 13 City Council budget hearing on ending the City’s commuter bus service.

 Of the other five Council members, even those who came to bury GEORGE left with praise:

 Councilman Dan Sze: I was under the assumption we could make a clean break [from GEORGE]. Now I’m conflicted. I support finding a way to buy time until we know what our bus service needs to be.

Councilman Lawrence Webb:  I was a proponent of de-funding GEORGE. Tonight makes me think there may be other options.

Three other Council members had always hoped to somehow keep GEORGE running.

Councilman Dave Snyder: The $8 [City cost] per fare is an “urban myth.” For every dollar the City invests [in GEORGE] it gets 50 cents from the state. Compare that to schools, where we get 10 cents on our dollar.

Councilman Nader Baroukh: It’s been claimed that I’m willing to do whatever it takes to keep GEORGE operating at its current level. That’s not true. But killing GEORGE would be a mistake. I like the idea of having [Arlington's ART bus] service the City. But there are lots of missing pieces to the puzzle, and we have only two weeks to figure it out.

Councilman Dan Maller:  I’m disappointed at [the City Manager's] range of options. What is the minimum level the City can operate the bus? Shame on us for running a relatively inefficient system — it does not compare favorably with other systems. . . . I believe we could draw from the [state] trust fund to support a transitional plan. [Congressman Jim] Moran will go above and beyond what we ask for. But so far, we haven’t asked the people who gave us the bus to help us keep it.

The Mayor and her deputy did not seem convinced.

Mayor Gardner: GEORGE could make the tax rate rise from $1.07 to $1.08 or $1.09. Not that I don’t like public transit, but I’m confused why we need GEORGE when we also have MetroBus. It’s curious — people who live a block away will take GEORGE over MetroBus. Why? Is it the 50 cent fare? Fewer riders?

She did, however, concede that Maller had “a great idea on how to bring service down and not add tax.”

Vice Mayor Hal Lippman: I have trouble with “business as usual.” And I’m not satisfied that GEORGE is “a need, not a want.”

Next: Part 3: The “common man” speaks on GEORGE.

Faced with New Info, Council Balks at Killing GEORGE Bus

A funny thing happened on the way to the City’s April 13 budget forum.

The “black box” containing City transit finance records spilled open, revealing over $2 million in City transit subsidies and obligations that, inexplicably, do not appear in the City’s budget.

On Monday night, the City Council assembled to hear City Manager Wyatt Shields’ case for killing off the inefficient and frequently nearly empty GEORGE feeder bus service.

The City administration had provided the means via town hall meetings and exhibits demonstrating a slam-dunk case for terminating GEORGE: for every rider paying a 50-cent fare, city taxpayers chipped in an additional $8. Total cost: $600,000.

With property taxes already proposed to increase 4 to 6 cents, keeping GEORGE running would add another 1.5 cents to the rate. Clearly a non-starter.

Last night, however, Shields presented new slides showing that half of the $600,000 cost for GEORGE is paid by state subsidies — funds that do not appear in the City budget. The “$8 per ride” language disappeared.

The subsidy information comes from an evaluation by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, in charge of administering government transit subsidies.

On May 1, City Councilman Dan Maller becomes the City’s representative on the NVTC, taking over from Councilman Dave Snyder. Snyder had already cited the NVTC evaluation and had it posted on the City’s website.

Early on, Maller let it be known that he would like to save at least some remnant of GEORGE. On Monday he took a big step toward that by asking NVTC Director Richard Taube to appear at the budget hearing, and alerting the City that Taube was coming.

Taube was prepared, if necessary, to shoot the City’s transit budget full of holes, as he had already done in his March 12 evaluation paper.

It wasn’t necessary. City Manager Wyatt Shields shredded his own figures and provided a fresh, bigger picture that might end up providing a case for salvaging GEORGE in some manner.

The new figures show that currently the City has a $2.1 million obligation to fund Metrobus/Metrorail, a fact absent from the current budget.

Also absent from the budget are revenues of $1.25 million in state transit subsidies, $600,000 sales tax receipts from gasoline sold in the City, and an additional $250,000 state subsidy for GEORGE.

The current (FY 2009)  City budget shows the $600,000 expense for GEORGE but not the $250,000 state subsidy.

Next year, if GEORGE were continued, the subsidy likely would rise to $300,000, according to Shields.

Maller was one of several council members not happy to get this information at such a late date.

At the conclusion of the hearing Maller, noting  that “we need transparency,” asked City Attorney John Foster whether “one of the most significant liabilities the City has” should be in the budget.

Yes, Foster replied — “My preference is that it be in the budget.”

The City Council will determine the fate of GEORGE on April 27 when it adopts the FY 2010 budget.

This is Part I of the Falls Church Times report of the April 13 City budget hearing. A summary of views on GEORGE by City residents and Council members will appear in Part II.

Disinformation Rally Against GEORGE Shifts to High Gear

With only a week left before the City holds a public hearing on its plan to scuttle the GEORGE commuter bus service, a powerful lobbyist organization has lent its support and issued an “alert” to its members entitled “By GEORGE It’s Expensive.”

The “alert” lists a litany of GEORGE offenses, concluding that “GEORGE costs taxpayers about $600,000 per year or $8.00 for every 50-cent fare.”

The “alert” comes from the “Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance,” a well-funded lobby for the construction of more roads and bridges. Past “alerts” include attacks against local politicians who voted against widening I-66. A February 19 “alert” states:

City of Falls Church residents experiencing overflow I-66 traffic on neighborhood streets should “thank” David Snyder, Falls Church City Council.

The GEORGE “alert” also quotes the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission as stating that:

“(GEORGE’s) ridership has not been strong… (but) “the image of Falls Church is enhanced with the presence of such a resource.”

The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) sounds a lot like the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance, but the two entities are chalk and cheese. The NVTC is the government entity in charge of allocating federal and state subsidies to municipalities such as Falls Church that provide public transportation.

When quoting the NVTC, the Alliance lobby group failed to report the NVTC conclusion that due to state subsidies,

“. . . the net cost to the City has been under $3 [rather than $8] per passenger trip.”

As of April 7, the anti-GEORGE alert was not yet posted on the Alliance lobby website. It was available, however, on the website operated by Falls Church Mayor Robin Gardner’s husband, Mike Gardner.

Mike Gardner, writing in “Blueweeds,” stated that:

“The regional debate about the financial viability and/or changes to the GEORGE local bus system escalated this past week as two key regional proponents of transportation questioned the costs of the system.”

One of those “proponents of transportation” is the above-mentioned Alliance lobby. The other, Gardner reported, is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which he claimed “will hold a series of public hearings to discuss eliminating and/or dramatically increasing the fares for GEORGE users as part of an effort to reduce the costs of so-called regional reimbursable local projects.”

After extensive communication with the director of the NVTC, it is this reporter’s understanding that the WMATA public hearings have nothing to do with an effort to reduce costs of “reimbursable” local transportation. WMATA is required to hold a public hearing any time a route change is proposed. It is the City of Falls Church that proposes to discontinue GEORGE, not WMATA. And WMATA has never “questioned the cost of GEORGE,” because it bears none of it.

The City’s public hearing on GEORGE is scheduled for Monday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Read Mayor Gardner’s husband’s website here.

Read the NVTC GEORGE evaluation here.

Read the NVTA lobby group website here.

Read the City’s GEORGE proposal here.

Read the FCT on “How to Save GEORGE” here.

Read the FCT on transit subsidies here.

Stopping GEORGE Bus Risks Big Loss in Transit Subsidies

The City’s budget proposal to save taxpayers $600,000 by ending GEORGE bus service fails to consider the resulting loss to the City of state and federal transit subsidies.

According to a study by the Northern Virginia Transportation Commission, the City pays only a fraction of the cost to operate GEORGE, with the rest provided by transit subsidies. But neither the City’s proposed budget nor previous years’ budgets make that clear.

The NVTC coordinates public transit for Northern Virginia and is responsible for allocating some $200 million annually in regional, state and federal funds. GEORGE receives a share of that funding, based upon costs incurred by the City.

The 2009 NVTC Handbook gives budget projections for public transportation in Northern Virginia. The projection for Falls Church lumps together grant money for the City Center’s planned “intermodal transit center” together with subsidies for GEORGE. The budget projection is that the City would pay only about 10 percent of the total cost.

The NVTC told us that if the City discontinues GEORGE, it will lose all the state subsidy, which last year was $250,000. This year the subsidy could be as much as $350,000 because GEORGE costs have risen.

How much federal money would be lost is unclear. However, the NVTC notes that “Falls Church has obtained a $1.7 million federal earmark for an intermodal transportation center which NVTC is prepared to obtain on behalf of the City. With no GEORGE service, the impact on that project is uncertain,” it warns.

City Manager Wyatt Shields told us he’s not clear about how much subsidy would actually be lost if GEORGE is discontinued. He promised to have that dollar figure by April 13 when the City holds a public hearing on GEORGE. The public hearing is a requirement to discontinue GEORGE.

City Transportation Planner Wendy Block Sanford told us she also has a lot of unanswered questions about GEORGE. “We’re trying to straighten this all out,” she said, noting that she is swamped with emails asking about GEORGE.

On the subject of subsidies, it appears that GEORGE riders transferring to or from the Metro are riding the bus for free – at least if they use a SmarTrip card, which is available to anyone. The GEORGE fare is 50 cents, but the SmarTrip card gives a 50-cent reduction to passengers boarding GEORGE from the Metro. Likewise, if a passenger pays 50 cents to ride GEORGE and subsequently boards the METRO, SmarTrip deducts 50 cents from the Metro fare.

The City has never publicized the fact that GEORGE is effectively free to passengers with SmarTrip cards. But it has complained that WMATA, the regional transit authority, has only been reimbursing the City about half the amount of the fares collected. Virtually all GEORGE passengers ride to or from the Metro.

Read the NVTC GEORGE study here.

Read the 2009 NVTC Handbook here (see page 39).

Read the City’s GEORGE presentation here.

Read the FCT on “How to Save GEORGE” here.

Read the FCT on “Lots of Ideas on GEORGE” here.

 

 

Next Page »