The Examiner reports on some interesting news this morning for anyone familiar with the soul-crushing experience of trekking down to 1001 Half St. SW to wait in line at the city’s vehicle inspection facility: Mayor Fenty is working on a plan that would allow gas stations to perform vehicle inspections.

The plan is still in its preliminary stages, but the basic idea is to decentralize emissions inspections, allow private gas stations to begin performing them for $45 a pop all over the city, and eventually shut down the city-run inspection station. The Half St. facility is expected to run a $1 million deficit in fiscal 2008.

Now, there’s a lot of skepticism expressed in the Examiner story. Would that many gas stations actually be able to afford to buy the equipment needed to perform the inspections? Would the District’s air quality suffer in the face of potentially less reliable emissions testing results? Are people willing to pay $45 instead of $25 for the convenience of being able to get a vehicle inspection at a nearby location? It’s hard to say exactly how well such a program would work in the District, especially since the number of service stations within the city has actually been declining in recent years. But I can tell you that this sort of decentralized emissions testing has worked beautifully for ten years in California. It literally works like this:

1) You get a notice in the mail that you need a new emissions test.
2) You put the notice in your car and forget about it for a few days.
3) You stop to purchase gas at a nearby service station, remember the notice, check to see if the sign above is on display, and pull your car around back to grab a quick emissions test.
4) You leave the gas station 15 minutes later with your emissions certification in hand.

Obviously, there are many details yet to be worked out, but a proposal like this, with the potential for saving the city money and at the same time making annoying tasks like vehicle inspections easier, is most definitely worth serious consideration.