By Allison Steele
The Philadelphia Inquirer
In Upper Darby, where many police officers drive between 60 and 70 miles a day, patrols could soon get a lot shorter.
With gas prices climbing, Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood says he may try to cut patrol miles by half. Instead of cruising neighborhoods, officers would park in high-crime areas and travel from there, he said. The strategy would save money, but lengthen response time to some places.
“Of course,” Chitwood said, it “reduces our visibility in other neighborhoods.”
“We have to be mobile, so we’re looking at also maybe increasing bike patrols, increasing motorcycles,” he said.
With a gallon of gas averaging $4.06 in Pennsylvania and $3.98 in New Jersey, police chiefs are looking for ways to conserve fuel without sacrificing public safety. Departments are finding there isn’t much they can cut.
The Pennsylvania State Police, whose troopers drive about 66 million miles and use about 4.5 million gallons of gas annually, expects to spend almost $12 million on fuel this fiscal year, said Cpl. Annette Quinn, a spokeswoman. That’s $2 million more than a year ago.
Like many departments, the agency has added fuel-efficient vehicles. It also has encouraged troopers to share rides to training programs and use video conferencing for meetings when possible, spokesman Jack Lewis said.
The police agency is postponing maintenance projects and equipment purchases, and having visiting personnel stay at the police academy rather than in a hotel.
Those measures will help, but troopers patrol about 83 percent of Pennsylvania. A single-cent increase in the price of a gallon of gas costs an additional $45,000 in a typical year, Lewis said.
“Police officers aren’t driving these cars as a perk,” said Jim Pasco, executive director of the national Fraternal Order of Police, which lobbies for police on public-safety and labor matters. “They need that mobility, and you obviously can’t put a price on public safety.”
In addition to reducing response time, driving in marked cruisers gives police visibility in a community, Pasco said. Cars are also safer for officers in high-crime neighborhoods.
“There’s a place for foot patrols and a place for bike patrols, but there’s also a place for motor patrols,” Pasco said. “They’re not interchangeable.”
In Philadelphia, Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey has been meeting with advisers to consider ways to cut costs, said Lt. Frank Vanore of the Police Department’s Public Affairs Unit. Ramsey has increased foot and bike patrols to emphasize community policing and is looking at whether they can be expanded further.
So far this year, the city’s gas expenditure has been double what was budgeted, fleet manager Jim Muller said.
“We’re looking at a fuel budget this year of close to $20 million,” he said.
The city avoided a worse scenario, Muller said, when the police department replaced half its 1,700 Ford Crown Victorias with more fuel-efficient Chevrolet Impalas several years ago. The city also uses some biodiesel fuel and owns about 200 hybrids.
Muller said hybrids weren’t suitable as police or public-safety vehicles, which account for about 90 percent of the city’s 90,000-gallon-a-week gas use. They aren’t fast enough, he said, and lose fuel efficiency when features such as the air conditioner are on.
“For a drive to the supermarket and back, it’s fine,” Muller said, “but when you’re going to use it for emergency response, we’re not there yet.”
Some municipalities have long-term contracts with fuel dealers that locked in lower rates, but most anticipate a huge hit next year.
In Camden, the high crime rate - which tends to rise in summer - requires that officers spend most of their time behind the wheel.
The increased cost of gas is an expense that the city, which relies on state funding to make ends meet, didn’t need, said Teresa Sicard-Archambeault, a spokeswoman for the police department.
“We’re doing what we can to cut back,” she said, “but there’s a lot that happens in this city, and the officers have to be able to get to where they need to be.”
Chitwood said his Upper Darby force had not been told to drive less, but he suspects the request will come when the township’s gas contract is renewed.
“They may not even preorder [fuel] next year, depending on what the price is,” he said.
In Bensalem, where officers fuel up at municipal pumps, other departments have tried to cut their time at the wheel to help the police.
“We’re just absorbing the cost of fuel right now,” said Pat Ponticelli, deputy director of public safety for the Bensalem police. “Obviously, we have a fleet of vehicles that we can’t just put out of service just because gas prices went up.”
Copyright 2008 Philadelphia Newspapers, LLC