Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space

"A community’s physical form, rather than its land uses, is its most intrinsic and enduring characteristic." [Katz, EPA] This blog focuses on place and placemaking and all that makes it work--historic preservation, urban design, transportation, asset-based community development, arts & cultural development, commercial district revitalization, tourism & destination development, and quality of life advocacy--along with doses of civic engagement and good governance watchdogging.

Sunday, October 14, 2018

Old streetcar track peeking out of the pavement at 8th St. and Florida Avenue NE, from the 90 streetcar line

Old streetcar track peeking out of the pavement at 8th St. and Florida Avenue NE, from the 90 streetcar line

I noticed this yesterday when I was cycling over to the H Street Festival.

Streetcars stopped running in DC in 1962.

PCC 1512 (Silver Sightseer) on January 27 1962, Courtesy the Joe Testagrose collection via Dave's Railpix. Probably on U Street NW. Note the direction sign says "Navy Yard."

The 90s line ran from the edge of Adams-Morgan (end stop at the Calvert Street Bridge) to the Navy Yard in Southeast DC, which was a major employment center -- and manufacturing facility.    (Calvert Street, 18th Street, U Street, Florida Avenue, 8th Street NE and 8th Street SE.)

Today's Metrobuses in DC with numbers like 90 or 42 or 30 represent that they are continuations of the old streetcars that previously ran those routes.

For many years, the streetcar tracks were still embedded in the street with no special treatment but in the 1970s, a bicyclist sued the city because of an accident involving embedded tracks.  The tracks were kept on O and P Streets NW in Georgetown as a significant architectural feature of the area's historic district.  Otherwise they were either removed or paved over (this is true in many places of streets originally paved in asphalt block too).

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