Economist.com Cities Guide: Washington, DC Briefing - July 2006

News this month

To catch a thief

Violent crime in Washington, DC, rose by 5% last year, according to preliminary statistics published in June by the FBI. The rise was driven by a surge in robberies, especially among juveniles. While the number of robberies in the city rose by almost 14.6% to more than 3,500 in 2005, violent crime fell in most other categories: the number of rapes fell by 24%, car thefts by 8% and arson by 24%. In all 7,716 violent crimes were committed in the District last year.

The dramatic increase in the number of robberies has been cause for concern for Charles Ramsey, the District’s police chief. Mr Ramsey said on June 21st that more juveniles were committing robberies, a trend that seems to be continuing this year: about 42% of those arrested for robbery in 2006 have been under 18, compared with 33% in 2005 and 25% in 2004. Mr Ramsey has fought to overturn privacy laws that bar police from accessing the criminal records of repeat juvenile offenders, but thus far has had no success.

Not so special

City officials squirmed in June, when the Washington Post reported that spending on the District’s special-education students had grown dramatically, putting a greater strain on a schools budget already stretched thin. Students with physical or emotional handicaps or learning disabilities are eligible for special education. Under federal law, they are guaranteed a free education, and if public schools cannot provide it, the city must pay for their tuition in private schools. In 2005 the city spent $118m on tuition for special-education students, according to the Post, a figure that has shot up by 65% since 2000. Special-education students at private schools comprise 4% of the student population, but account for 15% of school spending.

The extent of special-education spending has been clouded for some time, as the budgeted allocation for the programme is much smaller than the funds it sucks up. The tuition programme has run $173m over budget over the last five fiscal years. As a result, when the budgeted money runs out, officials divert money from the general school operating budget, at the expense of the District’s other students. District officials cannot explain the growth in spending, reported the Post, because of poor record-keeping.

Testing one, two, three

Washington, DC, suffers from the worst rate of new AIDS cases in the country, with about 180 of every 100,000 people infected. To address this, on June 27th District officials launched a programme to test residents for HIV, the 12th annual National HIV Testing day. The government has distributed oral HIV-test kits to medical clinics and offices to test locals between the ages of 14 and 84, roughly 400,000 people. The hope is that the tests will become a standard part of any doctor's visit, as commonplace as checking blood pressure. Results are available within 20 minutes, a big improvement on the weeks required for earlier versions of the test.

About one-quarter of Americans infected with HIV are unaware of their condition, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal agency. City officials hope that by informing residents of their status, they will influence their behaviour and slow the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Slow ride

An effort to ease the District’s crowded, testy subway system is not going as planned. In recent weeks the strain on the Metro has become more acute as maintenance problems force older trains out of service and design flaws delay the introduction of new carriages. While the city had hoped to introduce 100 new carriages by the year’s end, officials now expect to reach only half that number. The District recently won $1.8m in state and local funding to help maintain the system; now it is vying for another $1.5m in federal money as well.

The pressure to improve the Metro is real: Washington’s subway system is America’s second-busiest (after New York), and is getting busier. While the Metro continues to struggle with bigger problems of carriage maintenance and design, it is considering other, more subtle changes to improve riders’ experience. In May the system’s board approved a pilot programme to allow kiosks in Metro stations, and it is now considering letting musicians and other artists perform there as well. Metro officials announced a plan to brighten stations by, among other things, replacing burnt-out light bulbs more quickly. This may make the time a rider spends waiting for a train more pleasant, but it certainly won't get him to work any faster.

In the zone

Another fight is building over Washington’s venerable—and idiosyncratic—system for tallying up cab fares. The District’s cabs shun metres in favour of a convoluted system that divides the city into different zones, charging a passenger for the number of zones he crosses in a given trip. Anthony Williams, the District’s mayor, wants the city to abandon the old system, and in June the government completed an eight-month study comparing the cost of a ride in a metered cab with that of a ride with the zone system. Some two-dozen cabs had metres installed for the study, and an analysis of the data is expected later this summer.

The unique zone system has its defenders, who say that the zones provide predictability: people know how much their trip will cost, regardless of traffic. Still, even the system’s proponents concede that it allows a short trip that crosses zone lines to cost more than a long trip that stays within one zone. Critics go further, arguing that the zones are confusing at best, and at worst allow drivers to jack up fares by claiming to have crossed several zones. One thing is certain: with $6.50 as a base fare, the present system is not cheap. One compromise may be Global Positioning Systems (GPS). Yellow Cab, the District’s largest cab company, has started to use GPS to track journeys so that passengers can see how many zone lines they have crossed.

Catch if you can

July 2006

Rarity Revealed: the Benjamin K. Miller Collection

Until October 1st 2007

Any stamp connoisseur will pronounce this vast collection, donated to the New York Public Library by Benjamin Miller in 1925, the greatest in America. It is in fact so large that the National Postal Museum has chosen to divide it into two exhibitions: the first, which runs until October 2007, will display stamps issued prior to 1894, when private companies printed them; the second, beginning in November 2007, will feature stamps issued by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing from 1894 to the 1920s.

The exhibit—a philatelist’s Eden—marks the collection’s first public appearance since 1977. Much of the show is given over to a set of uniquely printed ten-cent George Washington stamps. Most of the other stamps are in sliding displays that can be pulled out of the walls for examination, though unfortunately there is no commentary to explain what it is you are looking at. The casual visitor will find the exhibit an interesting, if not comprehensive, introduction to stamp collecting.

National Postal Museum, 2 Massachusetts Ave, NE. Open: daily, 10am-5.30pm. Free admission. See the museum’s website.

More from the Washington, DC cultural calendar