Posts by Chris Townsend, Amalgamated Transit Union

Focus on Fixing the Streetcar, Not Fighting Workers

Streetcars made their last run in Washington, D.C. back in 1959. For the past 5 years DC City government is on track to rebuild the system, this time via a problematic public-private partnership. Plagued with delays and mismanagement, the new line is about to start service. More than $200 million has been spent to establish the first of what some hope will be several segments of new streetcar service in the growing city. Even prior to operation the D.C. Streetcar has stimulated economic development on the H Street Corridor, a long suffering neighborhood decimated by the 1968 riots.