The DC Streetcar Won’t Run in 2015

Yet another calendar year will close without the beginning of passenger service on the long-troubled DC Streetcar. The years-in-development trolley will enter 2016 still awaiting several certification and testing phases. WAMU transportation reporter Martin DiCaro said Friday on The Politics Hour.

Despite statements from District Department of Transportation Director Leif Dormsjo in September that streetcar service would begin by the end of the year, oversight officials are still not ready to advance the line H St., Northeast, line to a “pre-revenue operations” phase, DiCaro reports. That process, which will take 21 days, cannot start until an office in the DC Fire and EMS Department signs off on the streetcar’s safety documentation, which has been an issue for nearly a year.

“We are kind of in the homestretch here,” Dormsjo said in September when he set the year-end promise deadline for himself.

But Dormsjo shouldn’t feel too bad about DiCaro’s report today: he’s just the latest in a line of DC officials stretching back to the Adrian Fenty administration who have made incorrect predictions about when the streetcar would open.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.