Streetcars in DC

Jonathan O'Connell of the Washington Business Journal, in "D.C. wants to revive streetcar plan," pretty much scooped the meeting last night on H Street NE about streetcar planning in DC. But there were more than 100 people at the meeting.

Some of the Q&A was resistant, with questions about "how much will this cost?" or more focused on degradation of the bus service on H Street NE currently (because of the construction, which we learned because of utility company delays won't be finished until July 2011!, WMATA is not running articulated buses and this has reduced considerably the number of seats available on one of the most heavily used bus routes in the city--they need to increase service in the interim to make up for this, and they haven't done so).

- Gabe Klein, director of DDOT, spoke and said that DDOT is creating a new team, the equivalent of an agency division, to implement streetcars in DC, and that this team will require bringing on new expertise in areas such as mechanical and electrical engineering.

- Scott Kubly, currently DDOT's chief of staff, will lead this effort.

- Thomas Clark, an African-American trolley afficionado, who wants to get a franchise to run the streetcar system in DC, announced that the overhead wire ban was in an appropriation bill passed by Congress in July 1888.

- there is dispute on how to deal with that.

- the idea about wiring infrastructure is to not use wires in the monumental core, meaning an electric hybrid system with batteries, where streetcars can run for short distances without wires, such as on Pennsylvania Avenue.

- construction has begun on the streetcar line in Anacostia, and it is expected that streetcars will begin "revenue" service in December 2012

- the rough cost per mile for streetcars is $35 million (it wasn't clear if this includes costs for the equipment).

- many things are not in place for streetcars on H Street including the acquisition of streetcar vehicles and land and placement for power substations to provide electricity to the vehicles, as well as a place to store vehicles.

- Don't forget that the "H Street" line is supposed to connect to Georgetown, including the K Street transitway (which is being redesigned with three lanes in the middle including support for bicycling)

- and that integration into Union Station is key. (Some of the discussion included talk about the unfinished tunnel from the Union Station subway platform to H Street, as well as the former bridge and underpass on H Street which is still in place, under the current overpass.)

- there was no substantive discussion of how the 8 lines in the DC Transit Alternatives Analysis became 4 lines in the Comprehensive Land Use Plan's Transportation Element. Mr. Klein's discussion of creating a new network of streetcar lines was based on the Comp. Plan framework.

- the city sees streetcars as a intra-city technology and isn't focused more generally on surface-based fixed rail transit and how it could be extended to better link DC to the adjoining counties in Maryland via light rail.

- there was no discussion of whether or not the under development and testing Bombardier Primove induction technology (see "Primove catenary-free induction tram" and "Supercapacitors to be tested on Paris STEEM tram" from Railway Gazette International) is worthy of consideration for DC. This would eliminate the need for overhead wires.

- wiring infrastructure could be done from streetlight poles, and there would be one wire. (More like Philadelphia than San Francisco.)

- in a side comment, Dick Wolf of the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, mentioned that CHRS is holding a transportation forum (not just streetcars) as part of their fall membership meeting on September 21st.

- Mr. Klein mentioned United Streetcar, the division of Oregon Iron Works that has licensed the Inekon streetcar design for manufacture in the U.S. Thus far they have manufactured one such vehicle, which is expected to enter revenue service in Portland later this year.

- DDOT is committing to quarterly public meetings that could rotate among the wards (5, 6, 7, 8) impacted by the current phase of planned development and construction.