Streetcars on track for return to D.C.

This time, streetcars really are coming back to the District - for the first time in 45 years.

The D.C. Department of Transportation is “very close to announcing” the start of construction on a two-mile streetcar line in Southeast, said public information officer John Lisle.

The tracks will run from a new maintenance facility on South Capitol Street to the intersection of Martin Luther King Avenue and Good Hope Road, he said. The line will run past the Anacostia Metro station and near the new Department of Homeland Security headquarters.

The $25 million project - the first phase of the streetcar initiative - is expected to be completed in 18 months. The line will be served by three streetcars the District bought in 2005 for $10 million. They have been mothballed ever since in the Czech Republic, where they were built, because previous streetcar initiatives have failed.

D.C. Council member Jim Graham, Ward 1 Democrat, opposed one of those efforts last year because it would have run only from the Anacostia station to Bolling Air Force Base.

Mr. Graham is enthusiastic about the new route.

“Now there’s been a reorientation, so it’s serving the people of the District of Columbia and the route has a prospect now,” he said. “… [I]t’s poised to go over the [new] 11th Street Bridge. It can connect to Eighth Street and then can connect to K Street. You can see a vision for a light-rail system in the District of Columbia.”

Nothing would please transportation officials more.

“If we had our wish list, there’s an expansion we’d like to see throughout the city,” Transportation Department press officer Karyn LeBlanc said.

The second phase of the project is part of the $65 million, three-year reconstruction of H Street and Benning Road Northeast, which has already begun. Officials plan to begin laying tracks in 45 days while doing the road work, Mr. Lisle said.

“The H Street route makes an awful lot of sense. We’ll try to do some things on K Street down the line,” Mr. Graham said.

But streetcar service along that corridor is still in the planning stages.

“We haven’t identified all the pieces that need to get put together for this second phase,” Ms. LeBlanc said.

The Anacostia project includes laying track and installing poles and overhead cables. The line could be built at a rate of one block every two weeks. Service is expected to run seven days a week from 6 a.m. to midnight. The fare will be comparable to bus fare, officials said.

Metro first broke ground on a potential light-rail line in Anacostia in November 2004 as a way to demonstrate the benefits of having a light-rail line to shuttle residents to Metro stations.

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