Bacon's Rebellion

Paul Goldman in the Free Lance-Star on the Abuser Fees, which would not be levied on Virginians but not out-of-staters: “Now we have a new traffic offense called DWV: Driving While Virginian.”

“Being for driver safety is a good thing. We need to study it in a deliberate way before we rush into it.”

So said Gov. Timothy M. Kaine during a press conference he held with senior members of the General Assembly yesterday in defense of abusive-driving fees enacted into law this year. (Read Jeff Schapiro’s account of the press conference in the Times-Dispatch.)

Yes, we can all agree that driver safety is a good thing. But where, pray tell, was the “deliberate” study? What empirical basis does Virginia’s political leadership have for stating that highly punitive fines will lead to safer roads?

It just so happens that the Virginia Crime Commission published a study earlier this year, “Effectiveness of Existing Punishments and Recommendations for Additional Remedies for Driving While Intoxicated,” that examined the effectiveness of increased punishments for driving under the influence of alcohol.

Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, the leading advocate of the now-infamous Abuser Fees, introduced legislation in the 2004 session that increased penalties for DUI. Measures included (1) increased minimum sentences for second and third convictions, (2) lower blood alcohol levels to trigger mandatory minimum sentences, and (3) other penalties such as suspension of driver’s licenses, confiscation of cars and a presumption against bail under certain circumstances.

The law went into effect July 1, 2004. The study’s conclusions (my italics):

The data does show that there were fewer convictions for second and third offense drunk driving charges in 2005, as compared to 2004. Because this data reveals recidivism rates for only a one year period, it is possible that other factors are responsible for the lower numbers. Staff has concluded that it is not possible to definitively state, with methodological rigor, that the more severe punishments are causing recidivism for drunk driving to decline. Whether the lower numbers for DUI convictions will continue, or whether 2004 will come to be seen as an unusual year in which the number of DUI incidents was lower than normal, remains to be determined.

Additionally, there are many factors that contribute to the total number of DUI incidents occurring during a given year. The number of law enforcement officers assigned to patrol for drunk drivers, the number of DUI checkpoints established throughout the state, and the number of public service announcements on radio and television cautioning people to avoid drunk driving, all may impact DUI rates. The types of counseling and treatment given to people convicted of a first DUI may have even more of an impact on their future behavior than the amount of punishment they receive. Attempting to objectively discern what precise variables are having the most measurable effects on lowering DUI rates is extremely difficult.

While the initial data for the past year, with the lower DUI figures, is encouraging, it is too soon to draw any firm conclusions as to whether this is due to the changes made to the DUI statutes in 2004. Until data is available for at least four to six years, it is not possible to assess whether those changes are responsible for lowering recidivism rates. Nevertheless, the initial data is promising, and the Crime Commission intends to continue monitoring DUI rates on an annual basis to see if the downward trend continues.

That’s the only relevant report to the General Assembly that I could find in 2007 or 2006. (Someone might want to go behind me and make sure I didn’t miss something.) Fact: No one studied anything related to Abuser Fees “in a deliberate way” before passing the law. Fact: There is no empirical basis for claiming that the higher fees for traffic offenses will translate into safer roads. There are only hints, based on one year’s of data, that increased penalties might reduce recidivism for DUI, but the study insisted that the data were inconclusive and pointed to other possible causes.

If Gov. Kaine, House Speaker William J. Howell and other General Assembly leaders insist upon keeping the the fines, they should, at a minimum, do this: Fund mechanisms to measure and analyze the impact of Abuser Fees on drivers’ behavior. Let us not re-open the debate three or four years from now as ignorant of the facts as we are today!

In two recent articles, I’ve been critical of local fire chiefs for vetoing design starndards — width of streets, turning radii of street corners — preferred by developers hewing to the New Urbanism school of design. New Urbanists like narrow streets with short turning radii, which are geared to pedestrian traffic. Fire chiefs prefer wider streets with wider turning radii that their big rigs can negotiate. (See “Design by Fire Truck” and “Fire Trucks and Bike Lanes“.)

Now Tom Owens, fire chief for the City of Fairfax and chairman of the Northern Virginia Fire Chiefs Committee, has written, asking me to tell the “other side of the story.” I think he can tell his side of the story better than I, so I will quote him in full:

I read with great interest your article “Design by Fire Truck”, in which you tied community development plans to the design of today’s contemporary firefighting apparatus. There is without question a direct correlation between the configuration of neighborhood streets and the need for safe and effective access for fire and emergency medical vehicles; however, I would encourage you to look deeper into the many other aspects related to a fire department’s strong stance on unencumbered access to neighborhoods.

The “built environment” that fire departments must cope with have changed dramatically over the years. In their legitimate quest to keep housing as affordable as possible, building materials used have become lighter weight, construction techniques have become less substantial, many neighborhoods have homes built with zero lot lines that set the stage for rapid fire spread to neighboring properties, these homes are no longer filled with ordinary wood and paper based furnishings…everything is high density plastic and foam based materials that burn rapidly and generate intense fire spread. The level of heat output experienced today results in early structural failure due to the lightweight construction mentioned
above.

Fire Departments have continuously offered THE solution to the majority of these problems. Residential Fire Sprinkler Systems…..yet…..this same community of urban planners and developers resists building fire protection into these homes. They fight us in the general assembly when we propose such building code requirements and then complain when we insist on effective access into neighborhoods.

If you talk to most Fire Chiefs and Fire Marshals, they will tell you that a Fire Department is very willing to make tradeoffs to requirements IF developers will build more fire protection into these homes.

Owens raises legitimate concerns: the increased flammability of contemporary housing and the danger inherent with putting family dwellings so close together, as New Urbanists are wont to do. I’m delighted to bring those issues to light.

Following Owens’ logic, though, it sounds like a potential answer presents itself, and it’s not getting the General Assembly to mandate residential fire sprinklers. Let the marketplace decide on a case by case basis. If New Urbanist developers want pedestrian-friendly streetscapes badly enough, and if the local fire chiefs are willing to go along, let them install the residential fire sprinkler systems in exchange for the desired street standards.

Diana Sun has seen the light. She and her husband, Bob Solymossy, used to live in a detached, single-family house with a big garage in the Oakton area of Fairfax County. Never questioning their auto-centric lifestyle, they owned three cars and took long, time-consuming commutes to work. Now they live in an Arlington County condominium and they’ve downsized their automobile fleet to a single car. They’re loving it.

As communications director for Arlington County, Diana rolled out the red carpet for me yesterday. She introduced me to Paul Ferguson, the chairman of the board of supervisors, as well as several senior planners, and she took me on an extended tour of Arlington’s revitalized neighborhoods. (I’ll have a lot to say about that in the near future.) After the work day, Diana, Bob and I strolled through the Clarendon “urban village” and enjoyed some sidewalk dining. Bursting with enthusiasm for their new way of life, they told me all about it.

When they first moved to their condo, Diana and Bob couldn’t conceive of life with fewer than two cars, so they paid to buy an extra parking space to supplement the one that came with their unit. But they hadn’t lived long in Arlington before they realized they didn’t need the second parking space — or the second car. Diana walks to work two or three blocks away. They use the Metro rail service on occasion, and they ride their bicycles a lot. On those rare occasions when they do need a second car, they pay $50 a year to sign up with Zipcar, which allows them to rent one of the cars conveniently stationed around Clarendon for $9 an hour.

The one-car lifestyle saves money. Diana recommends a book, “How to Live Well Without Owning a Car,” that cites the five-year cost of owning a Toyota Corolla as more than $5,000 a year. She spends a fraction of that on mass transit and Zipcar.

The one-car lifestyle saves time. One of Diana’s jobs in Fairfax County consumed three hours a day in the two-way commute. Now she works minutes away. She marvels at how much more time she and Bob have to doing things they enjoy.

The one-car lifestyle is good for your health. Walking and riding bicycles makes people more physically fit than sitting in automobiles. Diana and Bob are both in great shape. They have loads of energy for undertaking their long, strenuous vacations to exotic, Third World countries.

The one-car lifestyle is good for the environment. Fewer cars = less driving = less gasoline consumption = less pollution.

Indeed, Arlington’s one-car lifestyle is such an improvement over their old, Fairfax County way of life that Diana and Bob have contemplated transitioning to a zero-car lifestyle. Having at least one car does does offer significant conveniences, however, so they haven’t been willing to take that step. Yet. But they’re so enamored with their new way of life, don’t be surprised if you read in the Want Ads one day: “For lease, parking space in Clarendon condominium.”

Virginia may have raised taxes and fees for transportation, and enabled its two most populated regions to raise even more, but we have not seen the end of travails for the state’s outmoded transportation financing model. In “The Next Transportation Crisis,” I outline how two developments will conspire to shrink federal transportation revenues paid to Virginia in coming years.

First, beginning in 2010, the federal highway trust fund won’t have as much money to give to the states. Congress goosed spending during the current six-year authorization period by telling the Department of Transportation to draw down the cash balance in the highway trust fund ($13 billion in 2004). That provides billions of dollars a year extra to spread around, but when the money runs out, it runs out. Worse, when there’s no cash balance in the till, DOT won’t be able to smooth out payments to the states — it will be forced to a pay-as-you-go system for dispursing funds, which could cause cash-management issues.

That brings us to the second problem: Federal receipts from the gasoline tax, which increased at 2.7 percent annual clip for more than two decades, actually showed a year-to-year decline in the early months of 2007. People are driving less. The downturn in vehicle miles driven may be temporary, but a case can be made that driving is entering a slower growth curve.

Meanwhile, a primary thrust of both the Bush adminstration and the Congress — one of the few things they can agree upon — is the necessity of cutting gasoline consumption. Over the long run, we will see motorists shift to vehicles that use less gasoline, or none at all. This, too, will cut into gasoline tax receipts.

The Virginia Department of Transportation is well aware of the impending downturn in aid from the federal government, so we shouldn’t be caught flat-footed when it happens. Even so, VDOT’s six-year transportation plan is built upon the assumption that gasoline receipts will continue to rise at the modest rate of one percent annually. That assumption is looking increasingly precarious.

It’s only a matter of time before Virginia’s pols come back wanting more money. Once again, we are reminded of the necessity to put our transportation system on a user-pays system relying upon congestion fees and a road-maintenance fee based on vehicle miles driven.