20 Years of Planning for Streetcars in Washington, D.C.

According to Peter Dovak, "[y]ou can trace plans for modern streetcar service in the District back to the Transportation Vision, Strategy and Action Plan, which the District Department of Public Works completed in March of 1997. This plan identified a need for better inter-District transit to complement the Metro, and it proposed three possible streetcar lines to make that happen."

Since then the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has completed two studies, one in 1999 and another in 2002, recommending three and then four, respectively, possible streetcar lines "as part of a larger region-wide transit vision." The District Department of Transportation has also completed a number of studies under the DC's Transit Future program, including 2005's DC's Transit Future System Plan and Alternatives Analysis, which has subsequently been updated and expanded several times. The article includes links to all of the relevant studies, programs, and plans in the chronology.

Recent political winds and funding shortages have pared away the most robust proposals contained in these plans, and Dovak speculates that the success of the H Street/Benning Road streetcar line could determine the fate of gander visions for a streetcar network in and around the nation's capital. Dovak also promises a forthcoming series of articles examining the modern streetcar proposals in Northern Virginia and the two routes under construction in Washington, D.C.