Adam Tuss, wtop.com
WASHINGTON — The D.C. Department of Transportation has grand plans for a vast network of streetcars, crisscrossing the city. On Thursday, the agency took another step toward that goal by ordering two brand new streetcars.
The streetcars, being produced in Oregon for about $9 million, will join the city’s other three streetcars. The plan is to have all five running along the tracks of H Street in Northeast by the end of next year.
In the last three years, dozens of new businesses have been attracted to the ever-changing H Street Corridor in Northeast, and city leaders say the streetcar is the main reason.
“The potential and the promise of the trolley was the No. 1 one reason that people talked about coming to H Street,” Anwar Saleem, a representative for the H Street Corridor told the D.C. Council.
“We are really able to sell H Street from the potentials of the trolley.”
The 2.2-mile-long H Street/Benning Road Line is planned to run from Union Station to Oklahoma Avenue. It will be the first segment of a planned eight-line, 37-mile streetcar network serving all eight wards of the District.
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