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| | | City officials map out streetcar plan | | November 07, 2009 | | | | Staff Writer | | The D.C. Department of Transportation’s plan to install eight streetcar lines in the District – an effort the agency believes will plug some of the city’s transportation gaps – is causing some controversy along H Street and other parts of Ward 6.
The department announced this week that the three streetcars the District already owns, which have been stored in the Czech Republic, are on their way to the city and should arrive by next month.
Officials launched the streetcar blueprint last month in Ward 6, and held similar meetings in each of the city’s wards, inviting residents to offer their opinions.
“I don’t want anyone to think that this is it, that there’s no room for input,” said Scott Kubly, a Transportation Department official who has been in charge of the streetcar project for the last four months.
The department plans to construct a 37-mile system in three phases within seven to nine years, beginning with three lines:
• a Georgia Avenue/14th Street/7th Street line that would begin at the Takoma Metrorail stop and end in Southeast near Nationals Park;
• a Benning Road/H Street/K Street line that would end in Georgetown; and
• a Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue/M Street line that would further connect Anacostia to its northern neighbors.
The rest of the system would involve:
• an 8th Street SE/Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue/K Street/H Street line;
• a Rhode Island Avenue/U Street/14th Street/K Street line;
• a Florida Avenue/8th Street SE/U Street/Calvert Street line that would run from Far Southeast to the Woodley Park Metrorail station;
• a Minnesota Avenue line; and
• a Calvert Street/Columbia Road/Irving Street/Michigan Avenue line that would link the Woodley Park and Brookland Metrorail stations.
The entire system as proposed would cost $1.45 billion, according to the department. But that figure depends on a number of factors, including whether the streetcars are powered by overheard wires.
In an attempt to “force the issue,” Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells plans to introduce legislation sometime this fall to override an 1889 federal law that bans overhead wires within the boundaries of the City of Washington. But Wells said his legislation would make exceptions in certain parts of the city — streets with north-south “view sheds” of the U.S. Capitol and other monuments, and possibly neighborhoods that oppose the wires.
“I’m not going to let overhead wires prevent us from having streetcars,” said Wells, who has proclaimed that procuring a streetcar system is now his top priority.
The National Capital Planning Commission has indicated its distaste for overhead wires. Some civic organizations, such as the Stanton Park Neighborhood Association, oppose overhead wires for the planned line on H Street NE, where tracks are already being laid. Both groups said the wires would ruin views, and the neighborhood association labeled potential wires as “visual pollution” in a letter to Wells.
But Joe Fengler, chair of the Northeast Capitol Hill advisory neighborhood commission, which represents H Street, said overhead wires would not ruin any views there and in fact would eliminate unsightly empty storefronts by spurring economic development.
“Compare one single line to the blight and pollution that is buses,” Fengler added.
Some neighborhoods might entirely reject the prospect of a streetcar. Wells himself has already voiced opposition to the two lines proposed for 8th Street SE (Barracks Row), instead suggesting that they should be moved farther east to 19th, 15th or 14th streets to promote development in Hill East, where an enormous mixed-used complex is planned for the site of the old D.C. General Hospital.
In Georgetown, where a line is planned for K Street, and may extend up Wisconsin Avenue in the far future, the neighborhood’s business community is still discussing the plan.
“Obviously, we would prefer any wires to be underground,” said Ed Solomon, a Georgetown advisory neighborhood commissioner and business owner. “I think [the streetcar in general] would be a concept the community would embrace if done properly.”
After gathering initial comments, city officials will embark on an 18-month environmental review process, during which the public will have an opportunity to comment on the plan. Kubly, director of the streetcar project, said it would take another year to award the project to a design and construction team. After that, he said, construction would last four to five years. | | | | | Log in to comment on this article |
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