Mayor says D.C. Streetcar is going away, ‘next generation streetcar’ is coming

By Rachel Weiner | Washington Post

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After less than a decade of operation, the D.C. Streetcar is set to be phased out and replaced by an electric bus that Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) called a “next generation streetcar” when she announced the change Tuesday.

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.

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Local leaders have been pushing buses as the future of the city and regional transportation network, a lower-cost 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.

Former DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo, who helped bring the long-delayed streetcar into service, said “the District and WMATA are cooperating far better than years ago and I’d be encouraged by any future crosstown transit service that has buy-in from Mayor Bowser and GM Randy Clarke.”

A lack of separation from car traffic means double-parkers can block the tracks, making bus service more reliable. After more than a decade and $200 million spent on construction, the streetcar carries a fraction of the number of riders of the express buses that travel the same route.

Donahue said some of the streetcars are reaching the end of their lives and that replacing them, along with extending the track, is financially unjustifiable.

D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) said he supported the streetcar but saw its demise as “all but inevitable” when plans for multiple routes were scaled back to a single line. “When it’s just one street, it’s not a network, it’s not really successful,” he said.

Even as the city’s streetcar ambitions shrank, plans remained to extend the existing line to the Benning Road Metro station. It was seen as an important corrective to years of disinvestment from a largely Black and lower-income neighborhood cut off by the Anacostia River, rail tracks and Interstate 295. Supporters said they were stung to be told they would be getting a bus instead; Ward 7 was slated to get a D.C. Circulator route just as that service was shut down last year.

“There is an importance of what the streetcar represents to our residents,” said Greyson Mann, a fourth-generation Ward 7 resident who has been advocating for the Benning Road extension for the past 15 years. “The quality of the transportation, and the ability to not have that transportation cut.”

Unlike the bus, the streetcar is free and it boards at street level, which is easier for people with mobility issues. It’s unclear what the new service will look like and whether riders will have to pay. The city is budgeting $2 million to work with Metro on ways to improve service on Benning Road, a District Department of Transportation spokesman said.

Council member Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7), who has advocated for the streetcar extension in the past, said he was not ready to comment on Bowser’s proposal.

Allen said he is concerned that a new form of local transit is being created, like the Circulator, rather than integrated into Metro’s existing plans to expand dedicated bus lanes in busy corridors. “It feels like we’re going to watch this movie another time, and we know how it ends,” Allen said.

Donahue said the city was working with Metro on its plans. At the same time, he said, officials do not want it to be “just” bus service, but “a bus service that feels a little bit different, in the way that streetcar made people feel a little bit different.”

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