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A Lifeline That's Often Out of Order(Newsbytes Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)A shredded wire that once patched into a receiver protrudes from a scuffed-up and dented phone booth. Around the corner, another pay phone is dead, devoid of any dial tone. And, across the street, gang graffiti are scrawled on a phone stand, which is also missing required information for customers to obtain refunds and report service problems. Such was the state of pay phone service recently around the humming intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road NW in Adams Morgan. The corner sits in the heart of Ward 1, where about one out of every four residents lives in poverty, making home or cell phone service difficult, if not impossible, to afford. Instead, many in the ward, home to a large number of Latino immigrants, rely on public phones for everything from looking for jobs to reporting emergencies to staying in touch with relatives in Central America and elsewhere. A report released last month by the D.C. Public Service Commission also painted a bleak picture of outdoor pay phone service throughout that swath of the District. The study revealed that none of the pay phones in Ward 1 was in compliance with city regulations during inspections in July 2004 and March of this year. What's more, "despite the commission's issuance of violation notices thereafter, when the . . . inspector returned in May 2005, only 10 pay phones were in compliance," according to the 30-page document, which said that there were 167 pay phone sites in the ward as of that month. "It is impossible to be in compliance all the time because certain phones get attacked frequently, sometimes minutes after they have been serviced," said Robert Snow, president of Community Telephone Co., which has about 45 pay phones in the District, including 19 in Ward 1. The report, which described conditions that mirror similar situations in other wards, said that 20 of the phones in Ward 1 had no dial tone during the March inspection. In the May survey, the figure had fallen to three. The other violations detailed in the report had to do with the failure of service providers to remove graffiti from their booths or post the necessary consumer information. "This is reflective of compliance problems throughout the city," Patricia Walker, the commission's pay phone manager, said of the study's findings. "But when it comes to graffiti, Ward 1 takes the lead." D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D), who has represented Ward 1 for the past seven years, said that problems with pay phones that do not work smacks of "classism" on the part of the service providers. "In some neighborhoods, pay phones always seem to be broken. It hurts poor people the worst," Graham said. "There are still many people in this city who cannot afford phone service, period. Public pay phones are an absolute essential for a lot of people." Graham pointed out, for instance, that he often sees lines of people waiting to use a bank of pay phones at 15th Street and Columbia Road NW. Pay phones also have proven to be vital means of communication after such disasters as the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and at the Pentagon when cell phone service became overwhelmed. D.C. Council members and activists argue that graffiti on phone booths can contribute to more serious crime because gangs use their markings to claim turf and recruit members. A number of phones around Adams Morgan, for instance, have borne the tag of MS-13, for Mara Salvatrucha, the area's most well-known gang. Such urban blight as graffiti-tagged pay phones can convey an impression of lax law enforcement and hurt economic development by discouraging investment in certain neighborhoods. "Visible objects of blight like graffitied or torn-apart pay phones tell people that the authorities are not paying a lot of attention," said council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4). "It is a disincentive for positive investment and an invitation for crime." For many years in the District and other U.S. cities, pay phones in certain neighborhoods have been frowned upon by community activists, public officials and police as instruments for drug dealers that attract crime and serve as magnets for loiterers. But with the proliferation of cell phones, authorities say, the drug trade relies less on pay phones. The public service commission is responsible for regulating the 1,300 or so outdoor pay phones across the District. The agency has one inspector, which it believes is adequate to monitor the pay phones and record operating, signage and graffiti violations. Critics of pay phone service contend that some providers are taking advantage of a vulnerable, poor population by ignoring its consumer rights. The companies are doing this, they say, by not adhering to requirements that they list contact information on their phones so customers can claim reimbursements when broken phones eat their money or when other problems occur in which users are shortchanged. Graham, Fenty and activist Terry Lynch have complained to the commission and Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) within the past three years about problematic pay phones and their owners, which include Verizon and a bevy of smaller firms. "The providers should be ashamed of themselves," said Lynch, executive director of the Downtown Cluster of Congregations. "There seems to be no accountability or reliability as far as pay phone services goes in the District." The public service commission said that pay phone service in Ward 1, including the phones at 18th Street and Columbia Road, has improved since violation notices were sent out and the November report was issued. For instance, 90 percent of the pay phone owners in the ward who were noncompliant have removed graffiti from their phone booths, Walker said. A pay phone service provider generally has 30 days to remedy a violation. If a company fails to do so, service to that phone can be suspended. The public service commission only regulates outdoor pay phones. During the inspection periods, 19 outdoor pay phone owners were operating in Ward 1. Four had not been certified by the commission to operate pay phones in the District. Commission officials noted that none of those phone sites were working, either because they had no dial tone or because the booths had no phones and probably had been abandoned. Snow said the biggest challenge facing firms such as his is vandalism, which includes graffiti and people removing the registration cards from the phones. According to the commission's report, the 19 phones that Snow's firm operates in Ward 1 were not in compliance. "Most of those phones still have problems," said the commission's inspector, Damon Patterson. Said Snow: "Generally, the one technician I have is not out there every day at every phone. There are gaps. But we do our best to keep them up." He pointed out that over the past two months, for example, he has had to replace the receiver on a Ward 5 pay phone on Bladensburg Road NE 15 times, at around $20 a pop, because the piece keeps getting vandalized. For telecommunications giant Verizon, maintenance of pay phones marred by graffiti and other vandalism also is a daily battle. "Pay phone services remain an important lifeline for some members of the community," said Verizon spokeswoman Christy Reap. She added, "It's unfortunate that needless damage . . . makes the job of keeping that lifeline available such a challenge." She said Verizon has answered questions from the commission about whether the company's pay phones have the necessary public space permits from the D.C. Department of Transportation by providing copies of them to the regulators. Mason Harris, president of the Atlantic Payphone Association, said it is odd that the service providers get sanctioned for having graffiti on their phones when they, too, want it taken off. "There are times we are penalized for being victims," said Harris, whose company, Robin Technologies Inc., operates one pay phone in Ward 1. "We know that cleaner phones generate more revenue." He noted that it is in the financial interests of providers to repair out-of-service phones as quickly as possible. The longer a phone is down, Harris said, the harder it is to retain customers, because they will find another phone in the neighborhood to use. Staff researcher Bobbye Pratt contributed to this report. |