WASHINGTON — As the D.C. Council discusses budget priorities for the next fiscal year, WUSA9 looks into what the millions of dollars the Department of Public Works (DPW) reported in unpaid traffic tickets could fund.
A March FOIA request revealed that in 2022, DC's DPW reported 4,202,669 unpaid citations totaling $889,187,824.
Mayor Muriel Bowser recently presented her budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2024. Her Transportation Safety and Mobility budget items total about $610.7 million.
If D.C. could figure out how to recoup half of those unpaid fines, that would total about $445 million -- which would cover almost all of the FY24 transportation safety priorities.
All of these could be funded:
- $7.4 M to install 342 new automated traffic cams
- $13.3M to support DMV’s increased ticket processing and adjudication responsibilities
- $258M toredesign dangerous roadways and improve traffic safety
- $36M to continue building more protected bike lanes
- $15M to continue expansion of Capital Bikeshare
- $114M to continue building bus-only lanes and other bus priority treatments to make bus travel faster and more reliable
These are the only priorities that would not cover:
- $19M a year to deploy both temporary and permanent traffic calming measures
- $148M for new or rehabilitated trail segments
Last week, the DC Council's head of the Public Works Committee, Councilmember Brianne Nadeau, discussed enforcing unpaid fines.
She said holding dangerous drivers accountable is a big priority, and she wants to make sure DPW has the resources it needs to do its part.
“It's really about turning up the heat and focusing on these other ways of getting the dangerous vehicles off the street, and trying to break the cycle of folks just you know, paying tickets and moving on," Nadeau said.
Recently, some people have been commenting on social media that they've noticed an increase in cars getting booted.
WUSA9 asked DPW if that was the case, and they shared the following statement:
"DPW has increased its enforcement personnel to enhance our ability to get boot-eligible vehicles off of the street. In fiscal year 2022, the agency hired three additional booters and six new Motor Vehicle Operators for the Towing Division.
The agency also recently opened a second impound lot in northeast to help boost our efforts to get more scofflaw vehicles off the road. This site gives us 190 more spaces to impound booted vehicles. It also reduces the time to relocate these vehicles to a more central site within the District, which will allow us to spend more time booting and towing."