Downtown Anacostia added to streetcar line proposal

The D.C. Department of Transportation is proposing to extend its planned streetcar line in Southeast by about six-tenths of a mile, adding another $20 million to the project and taking the system into historic Anacostia via Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

The demonstration streetcar line linking Bolling Air Force Base, the Navy Annex, Barry Farm and Anacostia will now end after 2 miles at the intersection of Good Hope Road and MLK Avenue, rather than the Anacostia Metro Station. The change balloons the project’s $45 million budget to about $65 million.

“It will allow the initial segment to serve a larger population and encourage economic development,” Mayor Adrian Fenty wrote in a September memo to Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi, requesting $20 million for the extension.

The Good Hope/MLK intersection was omitted from the original streetcar blueprint in the face of community opposition but to the dismay of transit advocates, who complained that the chosen alignment spurned downtown Anacostia in favor of a sparsely populated route.

Bringing streetcars to a revitalized Anacostia is a great idea as long as the line doesn’t divide an already narrow and congested MLK Avenue, said Greta Fuller, an Anacostia advisory neighborhood commissioner.

“I would welcome that, but to be quite honest I don’t see where they’re going to put it,” Fuller said. “It will bring so many more people to the area when it’s developed.”

The extension, according to DDOT documents, would run down Howard Road and MLK Avenue to Good Hope Road. Karyn LeBlanc, DDOT spokeswoman, said in an e-mail that tracks will be “in the street.”

D.C. Councilman Jim Graham and Council Chairman Vincent Gray have filed a joint disapproval resolution to stall Fenty’s $20 million request. Graham, who has oversight of DDOT, said this week DDOT is withholding critical details about the streetcar project’s growing price tag.

“I don’t think the route is an issue,” said Graham, who will reconvene a hearing on streetcars Nov. 7. “We’re saying, ‘Show us the budget for the project,’ and they’re saying, ‘Let’s get back to you.’ That’s not the way we want to do business here.”