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Even if it's not "the beginning and end of the DC streetcar," that's still no excuse to build a segment that has little utility on Day One. All rail transit projects are built in segments. Metrorail wasn't constructed all at once, but when it opened, it at least ran from Rhode Island Avenue into the Central Business District, making it a practical commuting option for some. The initial segment of the H Street line won't be useful to commuters who need to go beyond Union Station, which is likely the overwhelming majority of riders.
Thats like saying that Metro isn't useful for me because I live on the Orange line and my job is on the Green line. People do transfer.
And when it's extended down K street, it will have access to all six Metro lines.
The Congressional Delegations from MD and VA will never let that happen...
They can't stop DC from implementing a congestion based fee system. They tried to halt the traffic cameras way back when and look at the city now. It's a matter of time.
This is the USA, not England. Do you want to be them again?
Actually yes. An extremely urban and dense city with a subway station never more than a 10 minute walk away and a bus that you never have to wait more than 10 minutes for.
Oxford Street that goes through Westminster has so many buses that only taxis, bicyclists, and buses are allowed to use it.
Thats like saying that Metro isn't useful for me because I live on the Orange line and my job is on the Green line. People do transfer.
No, it's not. When the first metro line opened, it connected a limited number of residential areas to Downtown. The streetcar doesn't do that. At best, it can take you to Union Station, and that's it. For commuters who need to travel beyond Union Station, it's basically worthless. It can't get the vast majority of its riders to work, which is usually the most important place people need to be on a daily basis.
Anyone currently riding the X2 to some destination downtown is not going to get on a streetcar, get off at the hopscotch bridge, and then board a bus that will carry them the rest of the distance. That's ridiculous. The streetcar will hardly capture any of the X2's ridership since it won't get most people anywhere close to where they work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gomason
And when it's extended down K street, it will have access to all six Metro lines.
That's funny. I don't see this streetcar making it beyond the H Street segment (for reasons I've already stated). Even if it does, you're talking years before that ever happens. So I suppose riders will have to be content being limited to traveling from Sticky Rice to H Street Country Club for about 4, 5 or 6 years. It will be bar hopping in style.
When Matthew Yglesias, Eric Jaffe and Jarrett Walker all oppose a rail transit project, and you have Greater Greater Washington readers basically divided down the middle (the most pro-streetcar blog known to man), then you know your transit project has serious conceptual problems. This would be akin to Obama's approval rating falling below 50% in the Black community. You know he'd have to be the worse POTUS of all time for that to happen.
But hey, what harm could possibly arise from putting our faith in the logic of the real estate industry and their boosters (again)? There were some really smart people who convinced everyone home prices would always rise. They even had mathematical models to back up this assertion. They were right, weren't they?
The "plan" for now is to run Circulator buses there and have shuttle service to the Brookland metro station. The transportation plan, or the lack thereof, was one of the chief criticisms the Zoning Commission made of the PUD.
Clearly, the absence of any type of streetcar service did not deter Vision McMillian Partners. And we're talking about a parcel that's far less integrated into the urban core than H Street is. This goes to show that strong demand in the central city will bring about development whether a streetcar is there or not (another example is the Hecht's Building on NY Ave).
Even if it's not "the beginning and end of the DC streetcar," that's still no excuse to build a segment that has little utility on Day One. All rail transit projects are built in segments. Metrorail wasn't constructed all at once, but when it opened, it at least ran from Rhode Island Avenue into the Central Business District, making it a practical commuting option for some. The initial segment of the H Street line won't be useful to commuters who need to go beyond Union Station, which is likely the overwhelming majority of riders.
And I'm sure it was "welcomed" by developers. They can plaster an image of a streetcar on their brochures and charge $3,800 a month instead of $3,400 a month. The streetcar being "welcomed" by developers, however, is not the same thing as the streetcar being the "but for" cause of development along the corridor. As David Levinson points out here, nobody has been able to show a causal connection between streetcars and economic development. Yet it's always the chief argument offered by boosters.
The bigger concern that Yglesias and Jaffe note, if you bothered to read their pieces, is that the streetcars slow everything down. This is actually making transit worse, not better. And once people see what a miserable job streetcars do of moving people fast and efficiently, you won't be able to count on public support to improve/expand the system. This is what's happening in Portland now.
Is that really how we want to think about using limited transit resources...based on whether an upper middle class family will want to ride it to get to an expensive dinner? I mean, how do you balance that against the riders who actually need transit to get to work, to pick up a child, to get to a job interview, to get to the hospital, etc? Blowing money on yuppie transit diverts resources away from more valuable, broad-based transit endeavors. You're basically bending over backwards to please a few at the expense of many.
I'm also perplexed as to why people think the streetcar will be so different from any other bus route. So white people don't want to ride a bus with Blacks, Latinos, the homeless, and kids cursing and playing their iPods out loud, but they are willing to ride a streetcar with Blacks, Latinos, the homeless, and kids cursing and playing their iPods out loud? If you read the comments in the Portland thread I started, the streetcar there is developing a stigma because of the very people who ride it. That's not a bus-streetcar thing so much as it is a transit thing. The real hang up is not so much the technology, but instead the people who are associated with the technology.
The streetcar acts as a development funnel. It puts development where you want it. Without the streetcar, development is piecemeal. With a streetcar, development gravitates to a corridor. It's one of the best ways planners can funnel development where they would like it to go.
They can't stop DC from implementing a congestion based fee system. They tried to halt the traffic cameras way back when and look at the city now. It's a matter of time.
What you are suggesting is a lot different from having a toll system. But think about how long DC has been chasing a commuter tax. The US Congress reserves the right to stop any law that it wants to in DC. We don't have true home rule here, if you don't belief me just take a look at the language in the Home Rule Charter. Who would have ever imagined that handgun ownership would be legal in DC two decades ago. Let me ask you this, how would this congestion fee system work? How will the fee be collected??
Anyone currently riding the X2 to some destination downtown is not going to get on a streetcar, get off at the hopscotch bridge, and then board a bus that will carry them the rest of the distance. That's ridiculous. The streetcar will hardly capture any of the X2's ridership since it won't get most people anywhere close to where they work.
Do you think 100% of X2 bus riders work downtown?
I don't know if we live in two different worlds, but people do take the bus to a metro station and get on a train.
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