DC Streetcar - Development

Development

Between 1862 and 1962, streetcars in Washington, D.C., were a common mode of transportation, but the system was dismantled in the early 1960s as part of a switch to bus service.

In the late 1990s, Metro began considering a series of rapid bus, light rail, and streetcar projects throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region as a means of providing intra-city and intra-regional mass transit and to meet the transit needs of the quickly growing population of the area. The first project was proposed for Alexandria, Virginia, in 1999. In January 2002, District of Columbia officials began studying the economic feasibility and costs of constructing a 33-mile (53.1 km) long system of streetcars throughout the city. The project received Metro's backing. DDOT studied the feasibility of both a city-wide system and one or more "starter" lines. D.C. City Council Member David Catania specifically requested that DDOT study adding streetcars in the Anacostia neighborhood.

DDOT issued a favorable report, and the D.C. City Council approved an expenditure of $310 million for the streetcar project in September 2002. The first line to be built would be a 7.2-mile (11.6 km) "starter" streetcar line in Anacostia. The goal of the project was to bring light rail to Anacostia first (rather than last, as had happened with Metrorail), and to provide a speedier, more cost-effective way to link the neighborhood with the rest of the city.

Initially, the line was planned to run along the abandoned CSX railway tracks (known as the Shepherd Industrial Spur) from the Minnesota Avenue Metro station to the Anacostia Metro station, then cross the 11th Street Bridges before connecting with the Navy Yard – Ballpark and Waterfront Metro stations. DDOT originally planned to purchase diesel multiple unit cars (self-propelled rail cars powered by diesel engines) from Colorado Railcar. The cars would be the first of their kind to be built in the United States and approved by the Federal Railroad Administration.

Financing for the plan proved problematic. The same month that the D.C. government agreed to co-fund the streetcar project, Metro formally changed its strategic plan and proposed spending $12 billion over 10 years on rapid bus, light rail, and streetcar projects throughout the D.C. area. Metro proposed allocating half the total amount to build the D.C. streetcar line, complete the Silver Line, build a streetcar line on Columbia Pike in Arlington County in Virginia, and build a Purple Line light rail link between Bethesda and New Carrollton in Maryland. However, state and local governments said they were unable to fund Metro's proposal, and the planned projects died.

The District of Columbia subsequently decided to build the initial components of the DC Streetcar system on its own. The Anacostia line was scaled back to a demonstration project just 2.7 miles (4.3 km) in length with only four stations: Bolling Air Force Base, the Anacostia Metro station, the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE and Good Hope Road SE, and the Minnesota Avenue Metro station. DDOT began an environmental assessment of the CSX tracks in July 2003. In September 2004, Metro agreed to move ahead with the project (whose $45 million cost was now being funded completely by the District of Columbia), with construction to start in November 2004 and end in 2006.

In December 2009, D.C. City Council member Jim Graham proposed establishing a D.C. Transit Board to oversee the DC Circulator bus system as well as the DC Streetcar system. The board would oversee the establishment of routes and transit fares. In order to determine whether the local business community would support the streetcar project, several local real estate and commercial developers visited the Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light rail system which operates in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. The goal of the trip was to investigate whether MAX had the intended positive economic consequences and whether the return on investment seemed worthwhile. Local media reports indicated that the D.C. developers were impressed by the effect MAX had on Portland's economic development.

Local preservationist groups such as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City as well as regional planning bodies like the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) have opposed the current design of the streetcar system, which relies on overhead electrical wires and a pantograph to conduct power to the streetcar motor. Opponents of the design cite a 1889 federal law banning such systems in Georgetown and the historic center city (defined by the Florida Avenue NE and NW south to the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. The NCPC has also opposed use of the wires along H Street NE, the 11th Street bridges, and in Anacostia. These groups have proposed a design change that would rely on wireless technologies, such as battery-powered vehicles which rely on conduit current collection (in which a metal arm or "plow" is inserted into a channel in the street and draws power from cables under the roadway). But District of Columbia officials say the current overhead lines are not visually obtrusive, and that conduit collection systems are costly and break down easily in cities with wet climates.

City transportation planning officials have also proposed building a system that would run on wires outside the historic core but switch to a hybrid battery/conduit system inside the area. On May 31, 2010, 12 of the council's 13 members co-sponsored a bill to exempt the H Street Line from the 1888 and 1889 laws that banned overhead electrication in the city's historic core. The legislation required that the mayor's office develop a citywide plan by 2014 to determine where additional overhead electrification could be permitted. The Committee of 100 supported the planning requirement, and the legislation passed the council on June 29, 2010.

But in late June 2010, the chair of the National Capital Planning Commission, L. Preston Bryant Jr., sent a letter to the Federal Transit Administration demanding that $25 million in federal money intended for the streetcar project be withheld until the NCPC and city reached agreement regarding the overhead electrication issue. The NCPC said they had legal advice which indicated that only Congress had the power to rescind the 1888 and 1889 laws. City council members, who had been negotiating with the NCPC, said the NCPC's action was a sign of bad faith in the talks. DDOT Director Gabe Klein said the NCPC was "blackmailing" city leaders, and that the NCPC was overstepping its boundary as a purely advisory body. Klein asked Bryant to rescind his letter, arguing that Bryant had purposefully misstated the city's plans for overhead electrification (claiming it would install overhead wires on the National Mall and near Congress) and asserting that the H Street Line was not covered by the 1888 and 1889 laws. Klein also cited two previous legal opinions which concluded the city had the power to rescind the 1800s legislation. On July 13, 2010, the D.C. Council passed legislation to allow the overhead wires along Benning Road and H Street NE. The legislation specifically banned the wires around the National Mall and along Pennsylvania Avenue between Capitol Hill and the White House, and established a process for seeking public and other input on whether wires should be used elsewhere in the city.

Funding for the DC Streetcar system became an issue in 2010. D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty proposed spending $60 million to $70 million in his fiscal 2011 budget to complete the H Street Line and purchase six trams, with a goal of activating the line in the spring of 2012. Funding for other lines would be withheld until the city was assured that the H Street Line was a success. Fenty also released the results of a study commissioned by the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID) and researched by the Brookings Institution, Robert Charles Lesser & Co. research firm, and Reconnecting America (a non-profit public transit advocacy group) which found that the DC Streetcar system could increase the value of businesses along the H Street Line by $1.1 billion over 20 years.

Fenty proposed levying a $375 million tax on businesses on the H Street Line to help pay for the streetcar system. But on May 25, 2010, the D.C. City Council voted to delete $49 million in proposed streetcar funding in order to help close a $550 million budget deficit. DC Streetcar advocates accused Sarah Campbell, capital budget director for the City Council, for deleting the funds, pointing out that Campbell is also a member of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City (which opposed the streetcar system as currently planned). DDOT Director Gabe Klein accused the Council of killing the program. Campbell denied both allegations. The Washington Post reported that the budget battle may have been sparked by Council Chair Vincent C. Gray, who was likely to challenge Fenty for the Democratic nomination for mayor in September 2010. The following day, after hundreds of angry phone calls from residents, the Council restored the funds by agreeing to borrow the money.

On October 23, 2010, D.C. transportation officials published a revised plan for the DC Streetcar system. The new plan envisioned opening the H Street/Benning Road and Anacostia lines in March or April 2012. It also significantly scaled back the Anacostia Line, truncating the northern end of the line at the Anacostia Metro station. The plan estimated the cost of constructing the two lines at $194 million, with operating costs at about $8 million per year. DDOT officials said they believed 6,350 riders per day would pay the $1 fare in the system's first year, with ridership tripling to 23,450 riders a day in 2015. The cars would be equipped to accept SmarTrip cards but not cash, and officials said anyone transferring from Metro to the DC Streetcar system using a SmarTrip card would ride for free. The streetcars were expected to operate every 10 to 15 minutes, seven days a week, during the same hours Metro's rail system was in operation.

Funding for completion of the two lines was still unclear, however. DDOT had applied for a $110 million federal grant, but had already lost a competition for an $18 million grant. City planners said they continued to look at tapping into a $180 million fund designed to service Metro's debt, enacting BID or zoning taxes in areas affected by the streetcar system, or creating public-private partnerships that would tap into private money for construction in exchange for tax breaks or concessions by the city. The overhead electrical wire issue also remained unresolved in the plan (although battery-operated cars were mentioned). Finally, the plan laid out a process for selecting a third party to operate the system (which may or may not be Metro). Funding issues continued to raise concern in other ways, too. The rising cost of the project became an issue in the reelection bid of D.C. City Council member Tommy Wells, whose ward encompasses H Street. The City Council held a hearing on the newly-unveiled plan on November 16. Five days later, angry business owners along H Street demanded a tax refund and a moratorium on tax sales during a second council hearing. Business owners said construction of the streetcar line had caused sales to drop by as much as 70 percent, and City Council member Jim Graham introduced legislation establishing a $7 million fund to help businesses impacted by the construction.

On August 22, 2011, DDOT announced the first streetcars would roll on the H Street line in the summer of 2013.

In January 2012, the D.C. Office of Planning released a report which asserted that the streetcar system had the potential to create 7,700 new jobs and added as much as $8 billion in new development over a 10-year period. The system could also increase office building property values by $5.8 billion, and residential property values by $1.6 billion, exceeding by 600 to 1,000 percent the cost of building the system. The study also said that 4,000 to 12,000 households would move back into the District of Columbia from the suburbs, and the number of people living on or near a streetcar line would triple. The report "conservatively" projected that up to $291 million in annual tax revenues would be generated by the fully completed streetcar system. Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution told the Washington Post that the streetcar system had the potential to finally move development out of the northwest quadrant of the city into the underdeveloped northeast and southeast. But not everything about streetcars was positive. The report also said streetcars would also be likely to worsen traffic congestion on Benning Road SE, Columbia Road NW, Florida Avenue NW and Florida Avenue NE, Georgia Avenue NW, and K Street NW, and might make it "prohibitively expensive" for small businesses to exist along the lines.

Although DDOT awarded contracts to an Oregon company to build streetcars for the H Street/Benning Road line in mid-2011, these contracts were withdrawn and new bids solicited after the contract process was found to be flawed. D.C. City Council member Mary Cheh, chair of the council's transportation committee, said the DDOT's management of the streetcar project had lost the confidence of the public and that she would seek legislation establishing an independent authority to run the system.

Concerned that the streetcar project was not well-managed and losing public support, D.C. Council member Mary Cheh introduced legislation to create a task force that would study whether the streetcar project should be removed from DDOT's jurisdiction and placed under a separate streetcar authority.

In March 2012, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray proposed a six-year, $237 million capital expenditure budget that would continue to expand the DC Streetcar system. But just a few days later, District officials admitted that it would cost $64.5 million to operate the first two lines during their first five years of operation — but the city only had revenues to pay for about 58 percent of those costs. Nonetheless, the city reaffirmed its commitment to opening the H Street line in 2013, and announced it had signed a contract with Oregon Iron Works to buy two more streetcars for $8.7 million. Additional controversy over the future of the streetcar system occurred in June 2012 when the Cato Institute (an American libertarian think tank) issued a study denouncing government-built streetcar systems for being too costly, inefficient, and unable to generate economic revitalization.

In mid-June 2012, the city signed a $50 million contract with Dean Facchina LLC (a joint venture between M.C. Dean, Inc. and Facchina Construction Company) to design and construct the car barn, power system, and turnarounds for the H Street line. Mayor Vincent Gray said the contract was a sign that the city was going to adhere to a summer 2013 opening. But a few days later, D.C. Council member Marion Barry filed paperwork that placed a 45-day "hold" on the automatic council approval of the contract. Barry argued that too much money was being spent on a system that served too few people. Barry withdrew his objection just a few days later after Gray assured him that D.C. residents would be hired for construction jobs on the project.

Financing the system continued to generate controversy in June 2012. Mayor Gray opened a city office in Shanghai to promote Chinese trade with and investment in the District of Columbia. In his talks with Chinese trade officials, he discussed having the Exim Bank of China fund the system's construction. Gray said that Chinese officials expressed surprised that it would take the city 20 years to build out the entire system, and Chinese officials suggested they could fund all or part of the $1.5 billion streetcar project in exchange for all or a portion of the fares generated by it. After the meeting, Gray told the media that an independent financing authority might be needed to finance the streetcar system. Even as Gray was suggesting that the city government continue to build and run the DC Streetcar system, DDOT officials released a "request for information" (RFI) to construction and operations contractors regarding the proposed construction schedule, financing, and governance of the project. The RFI noted that, if the city privatized the entire streetcar project, it would seek a 30-year contract and given the private entity a free hand in designing, financing, and constructing the streetcar system (although the city would retain final say over fares). D.C. Council member Tommy Wells said he opposed any privatization effort. He argued a private company would seek to raise fares, reduce the number of routes built, and provide low-quality service to gain the highest profit. Wells also expressed his belief no private company would want to serve Ward 8, where the city's poorest but most mass transit-dependent population lives. DDOT countered by saying that although building the system would cost $1.2 billion (which included purchasing 50 streetcars), it would only cost $65 million a year to operate (compared to DC Circulator buses, which need $70 million a year to operate). DDOT also said its RFI was intended to see if there was a market for building and operating its streetcar system, and not a request for proposals.

As the city's RFI was being considered, DDOT announced it had signed a five-year, $4 million contract with RATP Dev McDonald Transit Associates (RDMT), a subsidiary of RATP Group, to operate the H Street/Benning Roadline. The contract also assigned training and the operation of maintenance facilities to RDMT.

In September 2012, the future of the H Street line was thrown into question. DDOT had long planned to build its streetcar barn on the grounds of Spingarn High School. But the Kingman Park Civic Association filed an application with the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board to have Spingarn High School declared a city landmark. That would force DDOT to find a new location for the car barn. On October 8, 2012, DDOT director Terry Bellamy told the D.C. Council that the civic association's actions would push the opening of the H Street line into early 2014, even if landmark status was not awarded to the high school. Bellamy expressed optimism, however, that the H Street line would still open, and said that DDOT was already planning to extend it to Minnesota Avenue. He also said the city was still working on plans to open an Anacostia line in Ward 8. D.C. Council members, however, expressed dismay at DDOT's apparent lack of a strategic plan for the streetcar system. They also voiced scepticism that DDOT was planning ahead and concern that more problems (similar to the Spingarn High School issue) would continue to plague the system because of poor planning.