Cutting the District government’s fleet by 150 vehicles within 90 days, as demanded by Mayor Adrian Fenty, will have to wait, as D.C. recently contracted with a Virginia dealership to purchase 15 new pick-up trucks.
Fenty’s 100 Days and Beyond blueprint pledged the vehicle cutback to reduce costs and improve air quality. But the Department of Public Works, which maintains the District’s 3,000-vehicle fleet, recently struck a $343,710 deal with Alexandria’s Ourisman Dodge for new 4×4 trucks to haul trash in the warmer months, or to plow snow and spread salt during winter storms.
DPW spokeswoman Linda Grant said the $23,000 trucks will be purchased under the vehicle replacement program, which replaces older, less fuel-efficient vehicles with trucks running on alternative fuel technology. The new vehicles, Grant said, will run on 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gas.
Meanwhile, she said, a strategy to meet the 150-vehicle reduction goal still is under discussion.
“They thought that that was an achievable goal within the time frame, and what they’re going to do is just come back to the agencies and push to make sure we’re getting the most use out of the vehicles and we’re being as efficient as we can,” City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said recently of DPW.
In conversations with other urban executives from across the country, Tangherlini said, “about every mayor said one of the first things they did was take another good look at the vehicle fleet and try to save money by reducing it.”
During a D.C. Council oversight hearing in February 2006, DPW Director William Howland said the District’s fleet management program purchases roughly $10 million worth of vehicles and equipment annually, describing the “replenishment program” as key to the rehabilitation and replacement of the aging fleet. More than 96 percent of the fleet equipment, Howland told the D.C. Council, “falls within industry ‘useful life’ standards.”
The trucks replaced through the Dodge contract are about six years old, Grant said.
