D.C. officials showed off the prototype of a streetcar on Wednesday that they hope will run along 37 miles of trolley lines within the next decade.
The public can view the 66-foot-long streetcar, which spent years in storage in the Czech Republic where it was made, through Saturday as the city drums up support for the waylaid $1.5 billion system.
» What: A 37-mile streetcar system on eight lines
» When: The H Street/Benning Road and Anacostia lines are expected to begin in spring 2012, with the rest operational by 2020.
» How: $1.5 billion for construction and streetcars; Mayor Adrian Fenty’s budget proposal calls for $63 million next year.
» Why: Each streetcar can carry about 168 people, ferrying more people than buses without the cost of Metrorail construction.
Source: District Department of Transportation
“Hurray for the streetcar in Washington, D.C.,” Mayor Adrian Fenty announced over the streetcar’s address system. He pledged to have the first two lines — H Street/Benning Road in Northeast and Martin Luther King Boulevard in Anacostia — ferrying riders by spring 2012.
The trolley features cloth-covered seats and the same red, gray and gold pattern as the city’s Circulator buses. But one piece still unresolved was also visible: Atop the car were the metal arms that connect the streetcar to the overheard wires that power it. A law dating from the 1890s bans overhead wires in much of the District.
The District Department of Transportation’s Scott Kubly told the Washington Examiner that the city hasn’t given up on changing the law. But it is working on creating the nation’s first hybrid system to use overhead wires in portions of the city, then switch to an alternative power source for areas with views of the Capitol, the Washington Monument or other landmarks.
The District Department of Transportation’s Scott Kubly told the Washington Examiner that the city hasn’t given up on changing the law. But it is working on creating the nation’s first hybrid system to use overhead wires in portions of the city, then switch to an alternative power source for areas with views of the Capitol, the Washington Monument or other landmarks.
The city won an approximately $2.3 million federal grant to retrofit a streetcar as a hybrid, he said. The city also has applied for a $25 million federal grant that they expect to learn about next month, said Kubly, who heads the streetcar program.
