DC makes yet another bad decision about streetcars: will replace the one line with a so called "fancy" bus | The Vision Thing

I got an email from a pr person about a conference in September about good ideas for urban revitalization, aimed at grassroots and neighborhood types.  I will write about it but I responded saying the problem isn't lack of ideas, it's how to get them implemented, amidst all the barriers that exist to hamper change as well as the long times to deliver a finished project.

I bring this up because DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that the city is going to replace the streetcar with the next generation streetcar--A BUS!!!!!! ("Bowser to replace D.C. Streetcar with ‘next generation streetcar.’ It’s a bus.," Washington Post).

Funding for the streetcar ends after two more years in Bowser’s budget plan. City Administrator Kevin Donahue said at the announcement that the new streetcar would be “essentially buses that utilize” the streetcar system’s existing cables for power. It would make it possible “to more nimbly and quickly expand the streetcar line out beyond where we currently are,” he said.

Flickr photo by BeyondDC.

Local leaders have been pushing buses as the future of the city and regional transportation network, a lower-cost and more flexible alternative to rail in a time of federal cuts that limit transit funding. The single D.C. Streetcar line, which runs from Union Station to the edge of the RFK Stadium site, took far longer to build than planned and cost $200 million. A lack of separation from car traffic means double-parkers can block the tracks, making bus service more reliable. The streetcar carries a fraction of the number of riders of the express buses that travel the same route. Planned as the beginning of a 40-mile network, it was the only two miles built.

Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell pose with a Commanders helmet at a news conference on April 10. (John McDonnell/for The Washington Post) 

JFC.  It illustrates the point that Mayor Bowser has no vision ("Social urbanism and equity planning as a way to address crime, violence, and persistent poverty: (not in) DC," 2021), other than maybe a football stadium ("Questions on the Commanders stadium deal," Washington Post).

OTOH this is but one administration's failure after the failure of two others (Fenty and Gray).  I joke that DC and Seattle started streetcar planning the same year, but Seattle's first leg opened in 2007, and DC's in 2014.  

DC's failure led Arlington County to drop their streetcar planning even though Fairfax County was all in ("Arlington officials halt efforts on streetcars for Columbia Pike, Crystal City," "Arlington streetcar demise sends message to poorer residents: Keep riding the bus," Washington Post, 2014).

I used to say that were I to have pursued a PhD in planning my dissertation would have been on best (and worst) practices in civic engagement, since land issues "outside of schools, are the issues that that are most likely to get the average citizen involved and participating in local civic affairs."

Now--especially given the relative success of the area's Metrorail heavy rail system (problems there too, since 2009, but initially it was wildly successful)--I think it'd have to be transit planning failures in DC:  But that's way more topics than you can fit into a single dissertation!  

• WMATA's operation and financial issues
• Purple Line planning and construction failures, leading to a 40+ year period from when I first read about the idea in a Washington City Paper cover story in 1987, to operation in 2027.
• DC Streetcar planning within the city ("Velocity of change, streetcars, and H Street," 2011)
• and its effects on streetcar planning elsewhere, not just in nearby Arlington, but it other cities where transit opponents used it as a reason to rail against transit proposals.

Note: FWIW, Seattle has messed up with streetcar planning, expansion and operation too, but for different reasons.  Its primary supporter, Paul Allen of Microsoft fame was the major developer of the SoDo district, wanted it  as an activation device to push development, even with minimal ridership projections ("Seattle’s South Lake Union streetcar is an empty monument to money," Seattle Times).

Seattle streetcar lines active, and proposed (Mark Nowlin, Fiona Martin / The Seattle Times)

From a ridership perspective, the major problem with the streetcar is that they never built it beyond a short segment of the proposed H Street-Benning Road line, when it was supposed to be part of a network ("Irony of ironies: District Might Fast Track Georgia Avenue Streetcar to Walter Reed," 2011).  It's frequency isn't all that and the route is duplicated by the less upscale X2 bus line.

Map of proposed DC streetcar lines and bus rapid transit routes.  Washington Post graphic.

Many people complain/ed about how the line isn't grade separated, sharing right of way with motor vehicles, so the trips are slow.  But I argued those critics missed the point, that the streetcar is about intra-district transportation, not longer point to point trips, like from H Street to Union Station or to Downtown or Downtown to Georgetown, etc. ("Making the case for intra-city versus inter-city transit planning,," 2011, "STREETCARS ARE ABOUT TRANSIT, just in a different way from how most people are accustomed to thinking about it," 2014).

From a induced demand real estate development perspective, DC Streetcar has been a wild success, generating about $1 billion in development that likely wouldn't have occurred without the streetcar as a new anchor and development inducement.("Update/revision of H Street transit oriented real estate development table," 2016).  H Street NE has the highest density of any part of the city without a Metrorail station (it has stations on the edge, but not directly within the corridor).

That learning should have been applied to streetcar planning for other parts of the city:

• Georgia Avenue
• Kennedy Street/Riggs Road (not a planned line)
• Rhode Island Avenue from Laurel to Dupont Circle (much more truncated in planning)
• East of the River, etc.

Just on the basis of the likelihood of significant induced real estate generated economic development.

Plus the National Mall and South Capitol Street ("A National Mall-focused heritage (replica) streetcar service to serve visitors is a way bigger idea than a parking garage under the Mall," ).

Buses don't have the same ability to generate extranormal and successful economic development compared to fixed rail transit done right (The New Real Estate Mantra, APTA, "NoMa: The Neighborhood That Transit Built," Urban Land Magazine).

Conclusion.  A streetcar network in DC is a way better economic development inducement than a minimally used football stadium ("Arguments in defense of a stadium at RFK fall short of a first down," Greater Greater Washington).

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1.  When I first got involved in urban revitalization in DC, I thought that that the city economic planners were really smart.  It was merely a stitch in time.  At the time I didn't know much about economic development and they did.  With each year of involvement my knowledge base grew while theirs remained static.

2.  And I don't understand the opposition to other fixed rail transit modes in the DC area given the relative success of Metrorail.  It's as if Metrorail never existed.

3.  The Vision Thing was a quote by George H.W. Bush.  There's also a Sisters of Mercy song.

4.  One of my longest posts during the Gray Administration was my critique of the city sustainability plan.  I made the point that adopting practices not as good as the various best practice cities was not a way to be a national leader.  If you achieved those results you were still behind.  The same goes here, with streetcars.

Maybe the Williams Administration was the last one with some vision.