Washington’s H Street streetcar line may be shut down before it even begins operation. In testing since last fall, the line has already experienced collisions with 11 automobiles and one railcar spontaneously combusted.
DC has already spent $200 million on the project and once had planned to spend a total of $2 billion on streetcar lines in the district. But, aside from accidents, testing revealed that the streetcars created major congestion problems and slowed down buses that carry people to work on H Street. The city predictably blames most of the accidents on the auto drivers, but if the city hadn’t put the streetcar there, most of the accidents never would have happened.
“I’m not going to ask for money from the citizens of this jurisdiction nor from this council for something I can’t manage,” says the director of the district’s Department of Transportation. The city has asked the American Public Transportation Association–hardly an unbiased source–to review the streetcar project.
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DC has been planning this streetcar for well over a decade, including buying Czech-built railcars back in the early 2000s and leaving them in storage while it dealt with problems such as a Congressional law forbidding streetcar wires on streets near the capitol. At one point, it was supposed to open for business in 2009, then 2011, then 2012, then 2013, then 2014, then January 2015.
Some of the businesses on H Street are upset that their Disney-ride might never happen, but they were even more upset when construction reduced their business by 70 percent. Even without the streetcar, H Street has been gentrifying like crazy. And while some would argue that the gentrification is taking place because of the streetcar, the Antiplanner has to wonder why anyone thinks that a slow, low-capacity transit system that suffers complete system failure anytime one vehicle becomes disabled would be a suitable transportation solution for a high-density corridor.
Nevertheless, some people are lobbying to keep the line going. But “If the streetcar doesn’t happen, H Street will not wither and die,” says one business writer. “It may even be safer.”
Local coverage indicates the internal management conflicts are regarding the safety of the line. Specifically, the question of whether there is sufficient width in the street for the safe operation of the train, that is can pedestrians safely wait for, board, and deboard the train without threat of automobile impact???
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If I understood it properly, managers are still trying to interpret the safety parameter regulations/guidelines governing this situation. I guess one interpretation results in the finding that it is public safety hazard.
“Even without the streetcar, H Street has been gentrifying like crazy. ”
Sad to think of these people crammed in tiny chicken coops on H Street. How can planners sleep at night, after forcing people into dense living conditions like these. Luckily these kind of places are dying out as young people flee to the suburbs in great numbers.
Yes, what aspiring GS-9 bureaucrat wouldn’t want to pay upwards of $2,700 a month for a 631 square foot one-bedroom apartment in a building that Yelp reviewers urge people to move to if:
1. You don’t like sleep and prefer 24/7 banging on the walls, floors, ceilings
2. You like homeless people sneaking into your building.
3. You like dog poop scattered throughout the hallways.
4. You like standing outside for TWO HOURS at 3am in the freezing cold because staff is inadequately trained on how to shut off the alarms.
5. You prefer your ‘hardwood floors’ to bubble and walls to literally crack because the “building is settling”
6. You’re ok being told your appliances “aren’t the best quality” and management refuses to turn up the water pressure necessary for the dishwasher’s proper use
This sounds like a walkable paradise to me! H Street is where it’s at! Sign me up already!
Density is sooooooooooooooodfdofiy amazing! lulz
Wow Frank, sure is expensive to live within orbit of the Great Leader!
You better believe it’s expensive to be near President Snow!
May the odds be forever in your favor!
And may gilfoil either shut the fuck up or say something of substance.
I cannot understand the draw of living in a city like DC unless you’re a leech living off the taxpayer’s back. Which, presumably, many there are, or wish to be.
Leeching off the taxpayers indeed. Housing prices didn’t go down in DC during the recession. Because theft occurs no matter how poorly the economy is doing or how financially strapped the subjects of the realm.
Rockwell states it best: “Funny, they always do very well, the government and the government employees. They’re all fat and happy and living off the rest of us with a gun at our head. We’re supposed to think that this makes them all great people. They’re not just like muggers or home invaders, or whatever. But somehow they have the right to rule us. They have the right to tell us everything we do in our lives. They know better than us. And they have the right to loot us at the same time they’re ruling us.”
And now my good friend who I met in the NPS and is a forest planner got a call for a GS-15 position in DC. And this friend is quite the slacker, milking per diem whenever traveling. Having the feds pay for moving expenses and even purchase the house that will be left behind! And a GS-15 is the best some slackers can hope for, especially those with law degrees that can’t cut it in the private sector.
Leaches. Every. Last. One.
And most people are stuck in the last century; they think federal employees make a pathetic salary, compared to state or local government “workers” (sic). Not according to what I read almost every day!
The most I wouldn’t make too much of the arcing incident is that the DC PR department bizarrely chose to use the word “fire”. Not only did they not need to use that term but they contributed to the over inflating of the incident.
As we grow more wealthy and technologically advanced, our expectations and standards should increase. Or, another way of saying the same thing, they should adjust relevant to the immediate needs.
In the old days, having horses pull carriages around, sometimes running along wooden plans, was an improvement. It created hazards and pollution but relative to the conditions, wealth and what they had it was an improvement. By today’s standards it would be completely unacceptable.
The progression of those street cars ( the horse drawn ones ) into streetcars ( the electric ones; aka trams, trolleys ) was an improvement in terms of speed, safety, access and environment over the old ones. Likewise cars, buses and eventually Light Rail ( LRT ) were an improvement over those streetcars.
The core problem with almost all trolleys being installed today is that they’re not built to modern standards ( in the sense above ). They need grade separation. They need signal coordination. Etc, etc, etc.