In July 2023, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen and the Committee on Transportation and the Environment delayed the DC Streetcar extension to Benning Road Metro by at least two years, by pushing the construction dollars out to FY 2026. This project has been promised for over 10 years and was originally supposed to be operational by now.

DDOT said in March that it could advertise for construction in 2024 if the Council provided funding. The entire project has a preliminary price of $178.1 million; it is currently in the final design phase and the price will be updated once finalized. While the Committee maintained the Streetcar dollars in the long-range Capital Improvement Plan, it’s unclear when, if ever, the funding will actually be released for DDOT to procure a construction contract.

On Monday, October 16, Friends of the DC Streetcar, a community group pushing for the streetcar’s eastward extension (of which co-author Michael Havlin is President), convened a number of urbanist organizations, community organizations, and over 60 residents at Marshall Heights Community Development Organization in Ward 7 for a panel discussion on the DC Streetcar and the DC Council’s decision. Panelists included Allen, DDOT Interim Director Sharon Kershbaum, and Friends of the DC Streetcar leaders. During the panel discussion DDOT revealed it intends to move forward with the DC-295 bridge reconstruction and highway interchanges without the streetcar elements immediately.

The Committee’s decisions, DDOT’s responses, and the panel discussion indicate that DC may be using the Streetcar as a “Trojan horse” to bait-and-switch even more car-centered infrastructure into Ward 7, which already bears a disproportionate burden of vehicular emissions and deaths due to highway-style roadways.

What the Benning Road Reconstruction and Streetcar Extension would do

The Benning Road Bridges and Transportation Improvements Project would extend the existing 2.4-mile Streetcar line along H Street and Benning Road NE two miles east to the Benning Road Metro Station. It also includes numerous other roadway and bridge improvements.

Due to an auto-centric design, the current Benning Road corridor has numerous challenges such as high particulate matter pollution, crashes, injuries, and noise pollution levels. The project includes elements designed to address this wide range of challenges; the two-mile streetcar extension, a two-mile 8-15 foot mixed-use path, curb extensions, a grade-separated bike lane, and a wide range of traffic calming measures.

Some parts of the project are explicitly pro-car, like the planned construction of DC-295 interchange ramps, but we believe they would be offset by the Streetcar expansion. There are currently 37,000 Ward 7 residents within walking distance of the prospective extension, 90 percent of whom are Black, the majority of whom are lower-income, and 40 percent of whom don’t own a vehicle.

The project also enjoys significant community support. Ward 7 Councilmember Vince Gray is a longtime supporter of the Streetcar. ANC 7D, ANC 7E, and ANC 6A passed resolutions of support, and several community organizations wrote letters of support.

Streetcars offer advantages over buses that are inherent to their distinctive differences: fixed rail and level boarding. Rail allows the streetcar to have a much smoother ride, which means it can carry far more passengers than a bus. The smooth ride is also much more enjoyable for all riders.

Additionally, rail means there are no rubber tires and so streetcars emit less particulate matter than rubber-tire buses; most particulate matter emissions actually come from the rubber tires, not the engines. The particulate matter emissions given off by rubber-tire vehicles – including heavy electric buses – are among the most toxic and harmful substances in the world.

Furthermore, level boarding is more accessible for people with disabilities.

Finally, because they represent permanent investment that can’t easily be undone, they signal long-range value which can help support economic development.

People like riding the Streetcar

The Committee cited low ridership when pushing funding back, arguing that bus ridership has been more resilient to pandemic shocks, but the data indicate the opposite. US Department of Transportation and WMATA data show that Streetcar ridership decreased less than bus ridership during the pandemic, has since increased more than bus ridership on a percentage-basis, and is now much closer to its pre-pandemic levels compared to its peers.

During post-pandemic recovery, the X2 initially saw faster rates of ridership gains, but more recently, Streetcar ridership has been surging. During 2022 and 2023, Streetcar ridership surged while X2 ridership decreased, and Circulator ridership remained low. From December 2021 through September 2023, Streetcar ridership more than tripled, increasing by 223.4%, while X2 ridership decreased by 20.5%, and Circulator ridership increased by only 7.6%.

As of September 2023, Streetcar ridership is at 76% of its pre-pandemic levels. The X2 is only at 44% of its pre-pandemic ridership levels, and the Circulator is at only 29% of its pre-pandemic ridership levels.

On a per-mile basis, the Streetcar blows both the Circulator and the X2 out of the water. The Streetcar moves 948 people per mile per day, the X2 moves 668 people per mile per day, and the DC Circulator system moves only 258 people per mile per day. Is the Council saying that the DC Circulator is preferred by riders? Or is the Council simply choosing to prioritize transit riders in upper-northwest and Capitol Hill instead of Ward 7?

It’s abundantly clear that passengers are voting with their feet — people like riding the Streetcar.

The District wants more people to live near the Streetcar

Parts of the H Street and Benning Road NE corridor are already among the most densely populated in the District. The District has routinely supported adding more housing there, and the corridor’s population will likely continue to grow—a good thing! But, without transit alternatives like the Streetcar, more residents could mean more cars.

A 2018 Brookings Institute analysis shows that a plurality of the District’s new housing from 2000 to 2020 was built in the census tracts near the Streetcar on the western-most portion of H Street NE. In 2022, the eastern portions of H Street NE and the Benning Road corridor were upzoned by the District from RA-2 and MU-4 (“moderate-density detached and semi-detached single family housing per lot,” according to page 13 the Office of Planning’s staff report to the zoning commission on the matter) to MU-5A (which includes “apartment houses that can provide substantially more housing units per acre than smaller apartment housing units under the existing zones”).

While zoning changes do not automatically equal new development, they make different—and in this case, more—types of buildings legal to build, sometimes by-right and sometimes with the permission of the Board of Zoning Adjustment or the zoning commission. The District’s building-permit data, which Brookings used in its analysis, indicates that more housing will be built along the eastern portions of H Street NE and the Benning Road corridor, where the Streetcar currently runs.

The census tracts along the Streetcar route are among the top tracts in the District for new housing permits. The permits themselves, and summaries provided by Urbanturf, show that many of these developments will be medium-to-large apartment buildings that can house hundreds of residents.

Expansion is also a good economic investment: Business activity and foot traffic to H Street businesses increased due to the Streetcar, resulting in an average of an additional $5,000 in revenue per business per year directly attributed to Streetcar, according to an economic impact analysis included in co-author Wendell Felder’s Georgetown University master’s thesis.

Plus, construction on a dedicated transit lane on H Street NE is starting in 2024 to speed up the Streetcar and buses. The lane will support more ridership by addressing a common frustration: that drivers frequently block the Streetcar lane and slow it down.

Concerning scenario: bait and switch

The Council’s recent budget maneuver is not the first time the can has been kicked down the road for funding, but this time something new happened: the DC Council only defunded the Streetcar-specific, traffic-calming, and most of the bicycle elements — maintaining the explicitly pro-car elements of the project in the FY 2024 budget.

The Transportation and Environment budget along with DDOT’s comments at the community event this month indicate that the agency is moving forward with only the DC-295 ramps and bridge, with a half-hearted promise to come back someday to complete the Streetcar when funding is available. It’s entirely plausible that DC builds additional car infrastructure on Benning Road but simply continues to delay Streetcar funding indefinitely.

Stop divesting from East of the Anacostia

Considering that the project’s Final Environmental Assessment included Streetcar, it’s hard not to see this as a bait-and-switch where the Streetcar extension is used as a Trojan horse, to build more pro-car infrastructure in a majority Black community with an empty promise to build transit someday.

DC has demonstrated a consistent pattern of divesting from this part of the city for nearly a century. The Council’s recent delay of the Streetcar is just a continuation of that pattern of abuse, gaslighting, and divestment. A promise that is repeatedly delayed indefinitely is merely a promise broken.

Why is Ward 7 always last? We live in a wealthy city, but our political leaders glorify the false scarcity mindset that disproportionately benefits wealthier neighborhoods.

At the Ward 7 Democrats meeting on November 4, Councilmember Zachary Parker explained his vote to delay the Streetcar: he thinks there are more important priorities for Ward 7. We believe that Ward 7 residents should not have to compete for priorities. When was the last time wards 2, 3, or 6 had to choose between education and transportation?

Investment in Ward 7 is long overdue. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council must course-correct on the DC Streetcar by funding the extension in the upcoming budget cycle.