Image courtesy of DDOT
DDOT to Host Public Meeting for the Benning Road Streetcar Line Extension Feasibility Study
Community Stakeholders Are Encouraged to Attend and Provide Input on Streetcar Line Extension
(Washington, D.C.) The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) is hosting a public meeting on Thursday, September 6, to discuss a study it has initiated to explore the feasibility of extending the H Street/Benning Road streetcar line east of the Anacostia River, in northeast Washington, and solicit input from community stakeholders.
As part of the study, DDOT will look into how it may be able to link the H Street/Benning Road streetcar line to the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station or the Benning Road Metro Station.
At this meeting DDOT will provide an overview on the scope of the study and explain the technical work that will be performed as part of the study.
The meeting will be structured to allow for 30 minutes of materials review and individual discussion with team members prior to a 30-minute presentation. A one-hour question and answer session will follow the conclusion of the presentation and will offer an opportunity for participants to provide additional input.
What: Public Meeting for the H Street/Benning Road Streetcar Line Extension Feasibility Study
When: Thursday, September 6, 2012
6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Where: Department of Employment Services, Community Room
4058 Minnesota Avenue, NE
Transit: The meeting venue is adjacent to the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station and is accessible by Metrobus routes A31, U2, U4, U5, U6, U7, U8, V7, V8, X1, X2, X3, and X9.
For more information about this meeting please contact the DC Streetcar management team at dcstreetcar@dc.gov or call 855-413-2954.
18 comments:
so when do we hear an update the the streetcar wont be running in 2013? can they get it done in 16 months?
before extending the tracks further, why not at least get a car running on the ones currently in place? enough already!
No, we get to listen to people whine about how only "newcomers" will use the street car.
hell no we won't go, keep spingarn intact, aint nobody gon ride this so cancel it, ain't no jobs, rent too high, kathy henderson, save our seniors.
Yep. Another meeting to say that there no planning, no communication about plans, and that the street car is going no where.
I'm just psyched for the traffic molasses on H once the streetcar is up and running (in 2017). If you think it's a pisser playing pole position on H now, just wait till the streetcars AND X2s are occupying the right lanes on both directions. Joy!
Anyone who thinks there's "traffic molasses" on H now doesn't get out much.
And, even better- since the city couldn't get its crap together enough to co-locate the streetcar stops and bus stops, we have less parking & sidewalk space and it'll tie up traffic further.
Yes, I understand streetcars ride at a higher height than buses, but the city didn't even try.
i will gladly pay more / ride the street car so i never have to ride the x2 again.
Wow, so shocked (shocked I say!) about all the cynicism here. Amazing anyone gets up in the morning at all.
The station locations make sense to me. The streetcar is not designed to replace buses, it compliments them. Wouldn't stopping the streetcar at all the bus stops make traffic worse? The stops don't take more sidewalk space either, since they are at new bulb outs built for the purpose. I don't think the 10-20 parking spots lost at the new streetcar stops along H are economically relevant either.
Did anyome go to the meeting who can report back on what happened?
I love all the negative comments by people who are so uninformed about the streetcar project. If you have been paying attention over the years you would know the stops were designed to not compete with the X2; that this line is part of a longer line which is part of a citywide system; that buses will eventually play a different role and will not run along the same routes as the streetcar but will serve to get passenger to a streetcar/metro stop. A streetcar system makes sense for the city as it is in other cities. But it has to start somewhere. And H Street has already benefited from being chosen to have the first line and will continue to do so. All this uninformed negativism doesn't help anyone.
There's a fine line between blanket cynicism and warranted skepticism. I don't know why you assume people expressing skepticism are less informed than you are. I, for one, am fully aware of what DDOT has planned, have been living here since early 2010 and have attended 4 streetcar meetings.
Why are some of us skeptical? Let's see. The start date has been pushed back several times. The connection to Union Station was at one point going to connect underground via pedestrian tunnel to the Metro, now now that's been scrapped in favor of a significantly more distant stop at the top of the Hopscotch. That's hardly an ideal connection, and ease of connectivity directly affects ridership. Not to mention that DDOT never actually worked out an agreement with Amtrak and the Federal Agencies involved to connect to Metro. So DDOT (which itself has continuity/staffing issues) *plans* to roll out a city-wide system. That plan was backed by Fenty and Gabe Klein who are both now gone and some of us remember Vince Gray's tepid support (to say the least) of the project when he was Council Chair. OK the plan is still on the books--let's see how many additional lines get built. I'm not saying it will NEVER happen, I'm just saying I would not be surprised if in 10 years, there isn't much of a "city-wide" streetcar system up and running.
So please spare me the sanctimonious Polly Anna "why are people so negative" routine. Not all who express skepticism are knee-jerk naysayers. They just might have a valuable bit of realism to inject into the conversation.
Hear, Hear.
Two words: starbursty rocks. That's what I like about "new" residents-much, much more focused on issues, without a comprehensive understanding of the past. That actually helps our city. Read the stats, people.... Granted, I think the mayo is an arse....
A big one.
The smug defeatist cynicism gets old because it is self-fulfilling. If you want to see faster progress, then support it.
It's not Polly Anna--anyone who has paid attention doesn't need a list or lecture on the failings and false starts. It is easy to be the critic, but as the lazy and uninformed complaints in the comments above demonstrate, these critics add no value.
Polly Anna-nonymous (8:50 AM): We are all supporting the street car (well, those of us who pay taxes are) but it's okay for us to express disappointment in how nearly every part of this project has been mismanaged.
If you were paying for work to be done on your house, you wouldn't just settle for the cost and time overruns, you would have done your homework ahead of time so that the project would have gone more smoothly.
Here's a cynical thought...What about the other end??? Where's that going?
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