Washington DC’s H Street streetcar has failed in just about every way possible. The 2.2-mile line cost $200 million, which is enough to build ten to twenty miles of four-lane freeway; it opened years behind schedule; and–despite being free “for a limited time”–it carries a paltry 2,400 people per weekday, which in a sane world wouldn’t be enough to sustain a bus line, much less a more-expensive streetcar. Now, the city has decided to extend that “limited time” for four more years out of a fear that charging a fare would turn away the few riders they now have. Officials were acutely aware that Atlanta’s streetcar patronage fell by nearly 50 percent when it started charging a dollar fare.
Despite these problems, the city is still considering extending the streetcar line. One of the arguments for doing so, in fact, is that if the line is long enough, they might actually attract enough patrons to charge a fare.
It is order levitra however advisable never to take so much of stress in their life. These techniques generally involve the patient stretching and relaxing muscles against a counterforce applied by the osteopath. viagra cipla wikipedia reference All that you need to understand that timely treatment can improve your condition at the earliest. vardenafil india There’s a reason that oysters are known as an aphrodisiac – they contain plenty of zinc. levitra without prescription But isn’t the streetcar stimulating economic development? Hardly. H Street was revitalizing itself long before the streetcar opened. No doubt streetcar advocates will pat themselves on the back because a Whole Foods is opening on the streetcar line next month. But the company signed the lease to move in back in 2013, well before the streetcar opened. Some will say this was in anticipation of the streetcar, but I suspect the company, all of whose urban stores are located next to parking garages, was more motivated by the fact that its customers would have 199 underground parking spaces available for their use. As any commercial realtor knows, parking, not transit, drives retail.
20% of DC residents live in dire poverty and the council spends quarter of a billion on trolley?!?!????!?!?
http://www.dcfpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/DC-Poverty-Demographics.pdf
DC Poverty Demographics
The District has seen job growth, a boom in the real estate market, and improvement of overall
economic conditions over the past decade. Yet poverty rates continue to be persistently high in DC.
Some 109,000 DC residents — or almost one in five — lived below poverty in 2012 according to
Census data. For a family of three, that means living on less than $19,090. One in ten residents lived
in extreme poverty, or below half of the poverty line.
Poverty levels in the District can be broken down by demographics such as age, race/ethnicity, and
work status. These distinctions reveal the variations in poverty among different groups of DC
residents. (See Table 1 on the following page.) For example:
? Children under the age of 18 are much more likely to live below the poverty level than adults —
27 percent vs. 17 percent.
? Just over 7 percent of white, non-Hispanic, District residents lived below poverty, compared
with 26 percent of Black District residents and 22 percent of Hispanic residents.
? DC has an extremely high rate of poverty among female-headed households — 32 percent.
? DC residents with low levels of educational attainment are more likely to be poor than their
counterparts with high school or college degrees. Just over five percent of residents with a
bachelor’s degree or higher lived below the poverty level, compared to nearly 35 percent of
residents who did not have a high school diploma or equivalent.
Maybe the city has more pressing priorities than their tram?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-has-the-highest-homeless-rate-of-38-us-cities-a-new-survey-finds/2016/12/14/95487b3c-c18e-11e6-9a51-cd56ea1c2bb7_story.html?utm_term=.258db1f91c73
The District had the highest rate of homelessness in a new survey that looked at the problem in 32 U.S. cities.
The “Hunger and Homelessness” survey from the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that D.C. has 124.2 homeless people for every 10,000 residents in the general population. The city also had one of the fastest increases in homelessness between 2009 and 2016, with a 34.1 percent gain. By comparison, New York had the largest increase during that period, at 49?percent.
Whole Foods? Unless you go every day and just buy a few things on each trip, who rides a streetcar to go grocery shopping?
“who rides a streetcar to go grocery shopping?”
People without cars. I used to take the MAX in PDX to Fred Meyer and load up my full-sized backpack. I’d also take the streetcar from Whole Foods, but it was usually just faster to walk. Or skateboard. But then the size of the backpack had to be reduced.