The District can’t tax the earnings of 500,000 nonresident workers, but there’s an effort afoot to toll them instead. Ward 8 D.C. Council Member Marion Barry on Tuesday proposed establishing a commission to study the idea of tollbooths at the city’s borders. Ward 5 Council Member Harry Thomas and at-large Council Member Kwame Brown co-introduced the legislation.
“I’m trying to find ways to get people to pay their fair share of travel on our streets, of getting police protection, of getting fire protection, creating potholes and other kinds of wear and tear on our streets,” Barry said.
Imagine a tollbooth at the foot of the 14th Street Bridge, the Memorial Bridge, the Key Bridge, New York Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, 16th Street, Georgia Avenue or Interstate 295.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing,” AAA spokesman John Townsend said. “That would be tantamount to killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Barry thinks that people who commute into the city are a burden to the city. They are not a burden. They are an asset.”
Charging commuters has become a popular topic of late. Mayor Adrian Fenty recently said he would be willing to explore, as they are in New York City, a congestion tax aimed at those who drive the District’s roadways at rush hour.
Despite the city’s strong economic footing, it still faces a gap upward of $1.2 billion a year between how much it can collect and how much it needs to operate, according to a federal study. The disparity is partially blamed on an inability to tax the income of about 480,000 nonresidents who work in the nation’s capital.
Congress explicitly banned a “commuter tax.” Tolls, supporters of the bill said, are perhaps a loophole.
“We always talk about the city losing money, but if we’re going to be a big city and act like a big city, most big cities have tollbooths,” Brown said.
Under the legislation, a nine-member commission would examine the legality of a tollbooth system, recommend toll locations and study the traffic and economic impacts.
