Proposed FY11 Budget Kills Streetcars
‘DC Streetcar Front’
courtesy of ‘Mr. T in DC’
Last minute changes to the 2011 District budget include the elimination of the District’s up-and-coming streetcar program. The changes, submitted to the Council by Chair Vincent Gray (D) at 2 AM last night, remove funding for the H Street-Benning Road streetcar line. Greater Greater Washington broke the news this morning, noting that Sarah Campbell, Gray’s director of capital projects had long been pushing to kill the streetcar program.
The streetcar program has faced many obstacles, including a concern over the use of overhead wires. A local advocacy group, the Committee of 100, has been an outspoken opponent of overhead wires, calling for more expensive wireless technology. Ms. Campbell has personal ties to Meg Maguire, the leader of the Committee of 100’s campaign against the streetcars. It’s unclear if that relationship had any influence on this decision.
The streetcar project aimed to help accelerate the revival of the H Street corridor. Construction has been underway on the line, and proximity to the streetcar is already being touted in real estate listings. This news has already blown up across the Internet, with many transit advocates and H Street residents showing outrage and stating they will now vote for Mayor Adrian Fenty (D) in the upcoming Democratic primary–where Vincent Gray is also a candidate.
Comments
16 Responses to “Proposed FY11 Budget Kills Streetcars”
May 26th, 2010 at 10:12 am
wow, spending all this money on construction and tearing up H Street only to wipe out the project after all the work already completed.
yet another reason to vote against Gray.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:15 am
can you give some more background, dave, into the relationship between maguire and campbell?
May 26th, 2010 at 10:16 am
Maybe those safety nets aren’t so necessary after all? Streetcars, safety nets: choose one.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Hopefully we’ll have some more information about all of this soon.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:18 am
Finally someone stops spending money that the city doesn’t have.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:22 am
I’d disagree that it’s an A or B choice here, streetcars or safety net. If that’s the case, I’d like to see more discussion of dog parks versus safety net, tax incentives for new retail (e.g. Costco) versus safety net, so on and so forth.
Certain ‘luxury’ budget items make sense to cut at crunch time, but something that already has infrastructure built and vehicles purchased just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
May 26th, 2010 at 10:26 am
Except for the fact that they’re the “gift that keeps on giving”… we’ll have to pay to finish the construction, including putting in terminals/stops, power infrastructure, and then paying to *operate* it, which if I understand, will be on the back of the budget since it’s not going to be a revenue-positive operation.
You can certainly make the argument that long-term it’ll be revenue-positive as tax assessments rise, but that’s a long, slow climb, and the city is in what you might describe as “budget crisis” at the moment.
May 26th, 2010 at 11:19 am
I took down my Fenty yard sign, pending my decision on whether to support Fenty or Gray. Thanks for helping that decision! My Fenty yard sign will go back up today!
May 26th, 2010 at 11:24 am
So…they’ll let all that construction on H Street go for nothing? Unlikely. I bet someone’s going to wake up and grow a brain.
May 26th, 2010 at 12:27 pm
Huge amount of H Street construction was going to happen anyway. They just decided to do the rails while they were doing everything else they wanted to do as part of the streetscape project.
May 26th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Mayor Fenty just won reelection.
May 26th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
C100 membership listed here http://www.committeeof100.net/about.html
Names that jumped out at me: Phil Mendelson and Adam Maier (not sure if it’s the same guy who works for the District’s Committee on Human Services chaired by Tommy Wells).
May 26th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
This does not suprise me.This is why I will continue to support Mayor Fenty. The changes in the District are positive. This guy wants to halt it, I wonder why..Another Barry
May 28th, 2010 at 7:25 am
[...] report was very quickly picked up and reconfirmed by many other blogs. DCist, We Love DC, Frozen Tropics, The Hill is Home, H Street Great Street, Life in Mount Vernon Square, the Sierra [...]
June 10th, 2010 at 2:46 pm
[...] report was very quickly picked up and reconfirmed by many other blogs. DCist, We Love DC, Prince of Petworth, Frozen Tropics, The Hill is Home, H Street Great Street, Life in Mount Vernon [...]
July 6th, 2010 at 10:31 am
[...] Proposed FY11 Budget Kills Streetcars [...]