11th Street Bridges - Streetcar Lane

Streetcar Lane

The local span of the new 11th Street Bridges was designed to accommodate a lane for the trolley cars of the city's emerging DC Streetcar tram system. The Anacostia Line of the streetcar system was originally intended to travel north from the Anacostia Metro station to a streetcar station at the southern foot of the local span before connecting with the Navy Yard – Ballpark and Waterfront Metro stations. Design changes were made in the 11th Street Bridges to permit the streetcar tracks. In 2009, however, DDOT said the trolley cars would not travel down M Street SE/SW but rather proceed up 8th Street SE/NE to link with DC Streetcar's H Street Line. To help fund construction of the Anacostia Line, DDOT proposed transferring $10 million from demolition of the 11th Street Bridges, but put that plan on hold due to delays in the streetcar project.

For reasons which remain unclear, DDOT shuttered construction of the Anacostia line in August 2010. Funding for the Anacostia Line over the 11th Street Bridges subsequently fell through as well. DDOT had applied for an $18 million Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant from the United States Department of Transportation to build the trolley bed and lay tracks along the local span, but the federal agency denied the application in October 2010. Three days later, DDOT released a new DC Streetcar map showing the Anacostia Line terminating at the Anacostia Metro station.

However, in October 2009, construction began on the new United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) headquarters on what used to be the west campus of St. Elizabeths Hospital. As the first DHS headquarters building neared completion, the need for a streetcar line to move DHS workers from the Anacostia and Congressional Heights Metro lines into the heart of Anacostia became urgent. Federal and city officials also wanted to find a way to link the 8th Street Marine Corps Barracks and United States Navy facilities at the Washington Navy Yard to the DHS campus. DDOT and the Federal Transit Administration began holding a series of public meetings to determine how to link the 11th Street Bridges with DHS.

By June 2011, three public meetings had been held, in which 10 alternate routes for the streetcar line had been identified. In January 2012 the fourth public meeting narrowed the routes down to four alternatives for linking the Anacostia Metro station to the bridges.