One Brick Short

The Charlottesville City Council last night approved a revenue enhancement project that will suck up $200 from every area resident who gets caught speeding.

The fine will line the city’s coffers, paying for just about anything and everything the city wants and maybe, perhaps, help decrease speeds in residential areas that have been the scene of constant complaints from neighbors and few, if any, serious or fatal accidents.

The decision to enhance speeding fines on Elliott Avenue, Brandywine Drive and Franklin Street will tack $200 on top of the $61 court fee and a $7 charge for every mile per hour over the speed limit.

In September, the city added a $200 speeding fine on Old Lynchburg Road, from the city limits to Jefferson Park Avenue; Avon Street, from the city limits to Monticello Avenue; and Altavista Avenue, from Monticello Avenue to Avon Street. Councilors called data for Avon and Altavista inconclusive, but said the number of citations on Old Lynchburg Road decreased by 31 percent after the new fines were incorporated.

That’s OK for the city because even if the number tickets decreased by 31 percent, the amount of money brought into the city by charging the fine increased nearly 200 percent.

Figure $61 a ticket at, say, 100 tickets for a total of $6,100 in income prior to the new fines. Now figure 69 tickets (dropped by 31 percent) at $61 a ticket plus the $200 fee and you have income of $18,009. With the ability to pass fines and users fees, who needs a hedge fund? How do you think they plan to fund those new Meadowcreek Parkway studies? Besides, they’re fining those pesky commuters coming from Albemarle County.

Data showed that the speed at which 85 percent of vehicles traveling on the three roads that received the fines last year decreased by an average of 2 mph. That may not seem like a lot, but Mayor Dave Norris and councilors David Brown and Holly Edwards said the fines are needed to bring to the Charlottesville a great cultural revolution of safety from speeding and safe streets for pedestrians. “We need to change the culture of the city so that it’s safe for everybody,“ Edwards said.

Edwards did not talk about rumors that the city will pass a law requiring all car drivers to wear crash helmets or forcing pedestrians to wear full-body pillows as part of the cultural revolution of safety.

The council has considered proposals to use their revenue enhancement program on Melbourne Road and Meadowbrook Heights Road near Charlottesville High School so they can increase money from harried soccer parents in min-vans and tardy high school kids who should be taking the bus, if they were green enough and really cared about the environment.

There is hope. Councilors Julian Taliaferro and Satyendra Huja said increased fines may not dissuade speeders and pointed at the minor decrease in average speeds.

“I think the fine is excessive and it has not been proven to me that it reduces the speeding that much,“ Taliaferro said.