The D.C. Department of Transportation will forge ahead this summer with its plans to add more streetcars, as officials try to take advantage of the nearly $100 million allotted to streetcars in the mayor’s proposed fiscal 2012 budget. In a chat with D.C. residents on Mayor Vincent Gray’s proposed budget on Monday, DDOT interim Director Terry Bellamy said the city would begin planning this summer for a streetcar on M Street, an extension of the Benning Road streetcar to the Benning Road Metro station, and combined bus and streetcar transit lanes on K Street from Union Station to Washington Circle, near George Washington University Hospital.
Gray’s proposed budget includes $99.3 million for streetcars over six years in the city’s capital budget, with $25 million for fiscal 2012. Officials hope to turn the mayor’s investment into a much larger fund for streetcar expansions in every ward of the city.
“A $100 million commitment from the mayor could be a huge down payment on getting a very substantial commitment from the federal government as well,” said DDOT spokesman John Lisle.
Officials will begin environmental studies and assessments during the summer on each of the three roads to begin the process of applying for more federal funding.
D.C. has been unsuccessful in its requests for federal transportation funding for its streetcars,
and faces stiff competition from its neighbors in Northern Virginia and Maryland that also are looking for transit funding.
The city has ambitious hopes to build more than 35 miles of streetcar tracks by 2020, which would cost an estimated $1.5 billion, much more than Gray has allocated so far.
“Obviously that’s a lot of money we could use to build pieces of the streetcar system,” Lisle said, “but we could build a lot more if we got a significant federal contribution.”
D.C. residents on the online chat expressed concern with the traffic woes associated with the streetcar construction, citing H Street as an example of a road that has been torn apart to lay tracks and been a nightmare for drivers, businesses and residents.
“We are learning a lot as we build H Street,” Bellamy wrote in reply. “Any significant infrastructure investment includes disruption.”
Bellamy added that officials are trying to address utility issues and want to keep roads accessible during construction.
