The District’s public works agency has already towed more vehicles to the Blue Plains impoundment lot this fiscal year than all of last year, but a new customer service center at the far Southwest site may at least ease the rigmarole of reclaiming a vehicle.
A vehicle may be booted and towed to Blue Plains if it accumulates two or more unpaid tickets, including red-light or radar citations, in a 60-day period. The number of tows to the lot so far in fiscal 2009 — Oct. 1, 2008, through Aug. 25 — was 7,593, according to figures provided by the Department of Public Works. That’s already topped the 7,439 vehicles towed in all of fiscal 2008.
And the District has plans to write even more tickets in 2010, perhaps prompting another towing spike.
“We hope people will consider the additional cost of the boot and tow fees and pay their parking tickets timely,” Linda Grant, DPW spokeswoman, said of the $100 towing fee, $20-per-day storage fee and $75 booting fee.
The new customer service center, open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekdays, “will significantly enhance customer satisfaction when retrieving one’s impounded vehicle,” the agency says.
“For the first time, customers may pay their ticket, boot and tow fees … at the impoundment lot,” DPW Director William Howland said in a statement. “That saves the stop at the Department of Motor Vehicles at 301 C St. NW to pay these fees followed by the cab ride or hourlong trip by subway and two buses to the lot.”
Facing a $1 billion-plus budget gap over the next three years, the city is banking on new revenues garnered through parking and “sweeper cam” citations, and red-light camera and radar tickets to ease the crunch. Photo radar enforcement alone is expected to generate $22.7 million in fiscal 2010, red-light cameras $6.25 million and general traffic fines $101.7 million.
The 2010 spending plan is replete with new citation-generators. Some were demanded by residents — to crack down on speeding, for example, or to ease a neighborhood parking crunch. But others, critics say, were designed strictly to generate revenue.
“Any way we can enhance the towing process to make it less painful and easier to accomplish is a service,” Lon Anderson, AAA Mid-Atlantic spokesman, said of the new Blue Plains center. “They’ve already got you over the barrel. Let’s not punish the motorist any more.”
