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DC Streetcars: Soon All Will Be Revealed

Tonight at 7pm @ the Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H Street NE), Advisory Neighborhood Commissions 5B, 6A and 6C will co-host a public meeting with Gabe Klein, Director of the District Department of Transportation (DDOT), to receive an update on the H Street-Benning Road streetcar line. Try to make it if you can—hopefully some questions regarding the long-delayed project will finally be answered.

For those unfamiliar with the project, plans have been on the books for quite a while to construct a series of streetcar lines in throughout the District. These lines would essentially fill in the gaps in the Metro system, allowing residents and visitors to reach neighborhoods previously only accessible via Metrobus. Case in point: one of the two demonstration lines would go along H Street NE, a neighborhood that can be frustratingly inaccessible at times (the other initial line would run through Anacostia.)

So far, both projects have had less than stellar starts. Completion of the Anacostia line was originally slated for 2009 and has since slipped to 2012 due to a dispute with freight rail company CSX and because of controversy over the proposed alignment.  The streetcars DDOT had already purchased for that line have been cooling their heels in the Czech Republic (pictured above) for several years now. The H Street line has also faces significant stumbling blocks, as the overhead electrical wires necessary for the streetcars’ operation are currently banned within the L’Enfant boundaries of the city.

Hopefully Gabe Klein can shed some light on some of these issues tonight, and will have some encouraging news about the H Street-Benning Road line. We want our streetcars already!