D.C. streetcars already making money from parking tickets

The District’s streetcar isn’t making passenger runs yet, but it is making money for the city.

Riders won’t be generating any revenue until November at the earliest, but D.C.’s Department of Public Works has begun writing parking tickets — at the attention-grabbing sum of $100 — for any vehicle blocking the streetcar’s path down H Street from Union Station to the Anacostia River, The Washington Times reported. Since the enforcement effort began on July 24, DPW has written 143 tickets and towed eight vehicles in the effort to allow streetcar operators to complete training runs along the 2.4 mile line.

According to D.C. Department of Transportation spokesman Reggie Sanders, there is not a lot of room for error. The streetcar tracks run along the right hand lane of H Street with a curb lane made available for street parking. But a vehicle that is parked outside of the white line that designates the curb lane — even by a few inches — can bring the streetcar to a halt.

“We sort of have to get people used to the streetcar being out there,” The Times quoted Sanders as saying. “It’s a tight space already and we have to have people park consistently within the white lines.”

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