Through today, June 26, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments has issued
a Code Orange Air Quality Alert on nine days this month. The U.S. National Weather Service tells us that, “A Code Orange air quality alert means that air pollution concentrations within the region may become unhealthy for sensitive groups. Sensitive groups include children… people suffering from asthma… heart disease or other lung diseases… and the elderly. The effects of air pollution can be minimized by avoiding strenuous activity or exercise outdoors.”
A glaring omission from this warning is what may be done to minimize the air pollution itself. The injustice of that should upset us all. That the onus of action should be placed on the victim of the air pollution, who is asked to merely “deal with it” by cloistering itself and waiting it out, and nothing should be asked of a perpetrator of that pollution, motorists, is inexcusably inequitable, and indicative of the Washington, DC government’s depressing irresponsibility and obscene cow-towing to the gleefully nodding Metropolitan Washington governments in Maryland and Virginia.
Why are Metropolitan Washington’s drivers quite comfortable with DC’s punish-the-victim approach? Because they like their cars, and they like driving them in this city whose roads they’ve trashed while DC’s resident pedestrians and cyclists, who produce no such damage or pollution, have run for cover, have reconsidered going out for a jog because its health benefits are less evident in light of the particulate matter to be inhaled, have reconsidered bicycling to work, the shop, or the café, because those steel boxes seem all too often all too keen to run us over.
It’s time to bring congestion charging to Washington, DC. In fact, it has been for a terribly long time. But instead, in its infinite wisdom, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is going to unveil some squeaky clean new posters in its metro stations this June 27. These posters will be affixed to its ticket dispensers. They will not be advertisements. They will not be poetry. They will not be happy faces. They will be fare schedules, bearing the remarkable difference from the outgoing posters of remarkably higher prices, 18 percent higher, actually, on average. This price hike will affect all hours, including peak hours.
While I don’t object to a price increase, per se, when it’s combined with no measure to discourage driving it effectively and counter-productively (relative to WMATA’s goal of reducing its horrendous budget shortfall) discourages the use of public transportation, and encourages driving, making the take-away message clear (unlike DC’s air which grows more opaque by the day): the status quo is here to stay, and we’ll be breathing in a vehicle-source noxious cocktail of particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and other pollutants for the foreseeable future, which will probably be farther than we can see in front of our faces, unless we take it upon ourselves to do what’s good for us and our 5-million-plus neighbors: drive less, walk or cycle more, and swallow WMATA’s bitter pill, congestion charge or no congestion charge. And if you think of it, do demand that congestion charge, since nothing motivates people to change their behavior quite like a lighter wallet, and we’ll adjust, and adjust well. People still love London, don’t they?
(The most perverse thing about this is the status quo is probably better for the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (what an apt title, no?) than a transport infrastructure that emphasizes public transportation, walking, and cycling, when you consider the cost of the automobile, its upkeep, insurance, fuel, roadwork, and… the cost to our health (obesity, asthma, heart disease, lung disease… I wish the list didn’t go on but it does)… On second thought, that’s not right. If we weren’t spending our money on automobiles and all their associated costs, we’d probably commit those same economic resources to other things, like public schools, clean water, parks, urban (re)development, civic events, our homes, etc., and conclude the day with the same GDP. Or if not that, we could simply work less and spend more time with family and friends, rediscovering the pleasure of community.)
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