Only in the national capital could century-old technology get so much city funding.
For the last two years, the little red and yellow DC Streetcar has chugged 2.2 miles up and down the increasingly chic H Street corridor, ferrying passengers from Union Station to the Benning Road terminal, delivering them to boutique whiskey bars, yuppie grocery stores, and a public 18-hole golf course along the way.
Best of all, passengers hop on and hop off without paying a penny. There are no fares for the DC Streetcar. But the trendy little transport is far from being cheap. According to the D.C. Department of Transportation the city spent $22.95 per passenger-mile in 2016 — meaning that on average, that was the operating cost to move one passenger one mile.
Public transportation apostles will protest that the data are two years old. They will argue that the astronomical cost is a result of an initial low ridership. But double, even triple the number of passengers and the spending remains exorbitant. And despite the best efforts of city planners, ridership hasn’t risen significantly.
According to the Federal Transit Administration, the DC Streetcar ferried an average of 2,419 passengers per weekday in March 2016, compared with 3,420 passengers per weekday in March of 2018. That’s a bump, but it is blip when compared to the more than 14,000 travelers who ride city buses along the same route and the more than 767,000 passengers who ride the Metro.
Maybe ridership is low because the trolley moves so slowly, whereas modern 21st century alternatives are faster and relatively inexpensive. You can catch a bus along the same route for $2.00 and it will even take you downtown for no extra charge. You can call an Uber to run the length of the trolley for $6.00, or hail a taxi for $8.00.
This means the city could have chartered a taxi for every single person who rode the streetcar in March 2016, and saved more than half of what it paid to run the streetcar — not even counting the streetcar’s construction costs. If Michael Sargent, an analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, had his way, D.C. would instead install a steam-powered locomotive powered “by burning dollar bills.”
Perhaps more practical would be additional bus lanes.
“When [the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority] — hardly a bastion of efficient operations — outperforms something so egregiously, it speaks volumes — and in this case, it’s not even remotely close,” Sargent says, citing the underground Metro. “The District government and streetcar backers should be ashamed that they have sold taxpayers such nonsense, especially given the nightmarish conditions most DC commuters face every day.”
Considering the dumpster fire of a train wreck that is Metro, it’s hard to justify spending so much money on a tram so few people use. The little streetcar is delightful, to be sure. It is also an expensive and inefficient boondoggle that belongs back in the 20th century. Run it off the rails.
