CITIZEN JOURNALISM:
When Jim Hogan was a kid, it cost 25 cents to ride the streetcars in Washington. A buck would get him five tokens, and with transfers, he would ride the entire system.
“My mother would let me go by myself to ride the streetcars,” said Mr. Hogan, a volunteer at the National Capital Trolley Museum. “I would get a friend, and the two of us would do that. It was a lot of fun back then. I miss that.”
Mr. Hogan started riding the streetcars when he was 8 or 9. He last rode when he was 14. That was in 1962, when the last streetcar ran in Washington.
Now in his early 60s, Mr. Hogan is one of the last of his generation to have ridden the streetcars - but he will get a chance to be a child again. Streetcars are making a comeback in Washington.
Construction on two routes, including one in Southeast, has begun with utility installation, followed by track being laid from Third and H streets Northeast near Union Station to Benning Road and 36th Street near Langston Golf Course and the Pepco plant.
The project also will include improvements to the streetscape, such as the sidewalks, lighting, trees and other elements to attract commerce.
The streetcar was the lifeline of most major American cities, and Washington was no exception. From its first horse-drawn line in 1862 during the Civil War, the city’s streetcar system expanded throughout the city and its suburbs. Then, with the popularity of the automobile, taxicabs and pressure from Congress to switch to buses, the dismantling of the streetcar system began in the early 1960s. The last streetcar ran on Jan. 28, 1962, ending a 100-year run.
Now the streetcar is returning to Washington in Anacostia, where construction is well under way and cars are scheduled to be operational by the fall of 2012, and along the H Street/Benning Road corridor.
City officials and other supporters say the use of streetcars will reduce short car trips, commuter congestion and parking problems. Also, the streetcars have environmentally friendly features. The Sierra Club says the benefits are undeniable. It has a protect-the-planet message on its Web site: “Urge the mayor to make global warming solutions a top priority, and to start implementing plans for DC’s full streetcar network.”
City officials expect the streetcars to encourage business development and housing options.
Each project helps the other. Restaurants, bars, coffee shops and condominiums already are beginning to spring up along H Street.
“It really can spur development in a neighborhood,” said Gabe Klein, director of the D.C. Department of Transportation.
Some critics view such development as a negative.
One such critic is Amos McCluney, 70, who rode D.C. streetcars in the early ’60s when he arrived here from Shelby, N.C. He says housing prices will increase where the streetcars run.
“I think it’s bad because they run them houses up so high black people can’t afford them,” Mr. McCluney said. “And they have to move out.”
Brenda Jackson, 50, says streetcars will increase traffic congestion.
“I don’t see the need for the trolley,” Ms. Jackson said. “It will just make H Street more congested. I can see that money going someplace else.”
The Anacostia route initially was planned to run only from the Anacostia Metro Station to Bolling Air Force Base in Southwest Washington. It has the potential to attract commuters because of its proximity to the Metro station and because the new campus for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, expected to house 14,000 employees, is being built on the former site of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. The campus, which will include Coast Guard headquarters, is slated to open by 2013.
The Anacostia route will run from the foot of the 11th Street Bridge (Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue Southeast) to the maintenance facility on South Capitol Street Southeast, with track expected to cross the bridge once the new span opens.
Projected local funding is $65 million. Federal funding is being sought.
The streetcars, which are roughly the size of a bus, can carry up to 140 passengers each. Cars will be handicapped-accessible, and wheelchairs and guide dogs will be allowed. Service is expected to run seven days a week from 6 a.m. to midnight. The cost will be comparable to bus fare, officials said.
The District bought three trolleys in 2005 for $10 million. They are still warehoused in the Czech Republic, where they were built by Skoda-Inekon in Plzen.
Right now, Georgetown is the only D.C. neighborhood that still sports tracks that were laid in the 1890s, and enthusiastic stakeholders are looking forward to routes again traversing through other neighborhoods, including Woodbridge in Northeast Washington and downtown.
“Bringing the streetcar back is a very smart, clean way of moving huge numbers of people around in an orderly, prompt manner,” said Robert L. Clarke, director of marketing of the National Capital Trolley Museum. “The streetcars themselves have a long life, and they’re a green way of moving people around in densely packed urban situations.”
• Joseph Young is a writer living in Washington.
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