The Tracks Are Down - Ward 8 Anacostia Street Cars

The Kleiner and The Kleinette - both reporting from the Ward 8 Anacosta Street Car Meeting

The Kleiner and the Kleinette attended the November 2nd DDOT DC Ward 8 Street Car open house at Savoy Elementary across the river in Anacostia. It seems we overpromised - originally, our intention had been to attend as many of these street car open houses as possible, but we've quickly come to realize that they are generally the same open house with posters replaced each time to describe the actual work to be done in a given ward.  Ward 8, one of the cities most neglected areas, has few grocery stores, pharmacies, or sit-down restaurants.  There are only a couple bridges connecting the area to the bulk of Washington, DC and the main activity appears to be the Bolling Air Force Base.  It is represented in the DC City Council by Marion Barry (previously a multi-term DC Mayor).

Along with the H Street/Benning Road tracks that are being laid down, Anacostia will be the first area of the city to see the Street Cars come to life.  According to the professional in charge of the construction efforts, the first turnaround tracks have been laid near the northern segment of the Bolling Air Force Base connecting the origination point to the Anacostia Metro Station (about 1.5 miles) and they should be moving in the first part of 2011 which is much faster than previously anticipated.  We also learned from other officials that as street renovation has been taking place on H Street and Benning Road, those communities decided to lay the tracks there faster than planned, so those routes should also be moving in 2011.

We learned more certainly that the funding will be comprised of DC taxpayer dollars at the Ward 1 meeting. Ward 1 Council Member Jim Graham expressed his belief that, because D.C. is paying for it, these street car routes should primarily benefit D.C. communities, not simply provide more ways to commute into the city from the suburbs.  At this event, when we asked officials about the funding, the situation seemed more fluid and there seemed to be more possibilities of multiple funding sources.  Will this change the routes or prioritization of route construction and operation?

At each of these events, easels with markers and paper have been provided for community comments on the projects.  In Anacostia, we noticed that the community comments were different than those in Ward 1.  The comments in Ward 1 focused much more on developing the best routes and the fastest time frames.  In Ward 8, we noticed that the comments focused more on the effects on the community, would there be trauma to the community resulting from road construction, how would it affect popular bus routes, and would it cause more traffic and reduce parking/neighborhood accessibility?  There seemed to be more questions about its impacts on the community.  
 
And Now, Anacostia urges its readers to go to the Ward 8 meeting to support the street cars given some resistance from the 'community' as the author moved to the neighborhood hoping for increased accessibility.  I'm interested in exploring this tension further, the desires of those new to the community hoping for change and the others who are concerned about the intervention.  It is our opinion that increased connectivity between all neighborhoods and communities in Washington, DC will greatly benefit the residents of the city.

What do you think?