The District has eliminated roughly 150 vehicles from its fleet of several thousand since January by ridding itself of cars used infrequently by government agencies.
Reducing the city’s vast vehicle collection, for environmental and financial reasons, was among Mayor Adrian Fenty’s goals for his first 100 days. The Department of Public Works, which oversees the District’s 3,500-vehicle fleet — 1,900 cars and pickups and 1,600 heavy trucks — claims to have met the challenge by identifying any light vehicles older than the 2005 model year that were driven less than 1,000 miles in 2006.
“We then notified all the agencies where these vehicles were assigned and asked that they be brought to our fleet maintenance campus,” DPW spokeswoman Linda Grant said.
The vehicles will be turned over to the Office of Contracting and Procurement, “which will take care of them using their property disposal procedures,” Grant said. DPW gave up 40 cars and trucks that had been used for transporting staff to work sites and picking up supplies, trees and dead animals.
City Administrator Dan Tangherlini said earlier this year that a government’s oversized fleet is one of the best places to find cost savings, a lesson he learned during the transition.
The fleet reduction goal was geared toward improving air quality, and the mayor listed mass transit use among his employees as an “important policy statement.” But Fenty said Tuesday he and his security detail will continue to get around in their large sport utility vehicles and town cars rather than on Metro due to his busy schedule.
“We’re 106 days into the job, so we’re still making sure that we get everything done in a 24-hour day, both running the city and representing the citizens,” he said.
Also in January, DPW shifted fuels for 2,273 vehicles to an environmentally friendlier ultra-low-sulfur diesel. The agency has seen no difference in vehicle performance since the switch, Grant said.
