I saw yesterday that the city of Washington, DC is replace their streetcar fleet. Transit officials say they are having a hard time getting parts anymore for the trains–as the company that made them is no longer in business–and the foreign company that can make those parts is always backlogged. The cost to replace those streetcars is estimated at 25-MILLION dollars. Did I mention the streetcars that are going to be replaced are just two years old?
Fortunately, the problems with the DC streetcars isn’t going to affect a lot of people. The trains currently run on just one street–H Street–covering a two mile stretch of bureaucratic office buildings and lobbying groups before ending up near RFK stadium where the DC United MLS soccer team plays a handful of home games a year. According to the DC Transit website, buses run along that same route almost as regularly as the streetcars.
The need to buy all new cars won’t derail (pun intended) plans to expand the system to one other street by the year 2024–which is three years later than first expected. The cost for that is estimated at 89-million dollars–plus buying another 20-million worth of trains. Installing streetcars is no easy task. The entire street must be torn up so that the rails can be installed down the middle of it. And wires need to be strung along the entire route between buildings–since you can’t have pedestrians stepping on an electrified third rail that subways use. Although a future expansion to the Georgetown area would use wireless streetcars that run on batteries–but that also cost 85-MILLION dollars.
The good news for DC streetcar riders is that the cost of the new trains and the expansion of the line will not be passed along to them. Rides on the streetcar will continue to be FREE for the foreseeable future. That’s right, DC Transit makes no attempt to generate any revenue from the streetcars–despite their exorbitant costs. That expense is just charged to the taxpayer–some of whom are us–as the Federal Government subsidizes operations of the capital city.
DC streetcar riders should consider themselves lucky, as least they can use their trains. Cincinnati found out the hard way theirs don’t run so well in cold and icy conditions. They too started out with free rides, but as soon as a fare was instituted, ridership fell 25-percent short of expectations–and those numbers continue to decline.
Milwaukee is finishing the construction work on their streetcar line this year and service should begin in the fall. If it performs as well as those in most other American cities, I’ll have plenty of fodder for My Two Cents for years to come.
