Is The DC Streetcar Actually Useful?

hello it's Sunday April 23rd of 2023 and today I'm going to be riding the DC streetcar the DC streetcar runs for 2.4 miles every 12 minutes on H Street and Benning Road from Union Station to Oklahoma Avenue just west of the Anacostia River Washington DC used to have an expansive streetcar Network that covered the entire city until the lines were torn down in the 50s and 60s due to the rapidly increasing popularity of car travel in the city switching to buses the streetcars were later largely replaced by the much faster Metro although some areas still remain underserved This Modern Reincarnation of the system opened in February of 2016 to provide a better quality service on the H Street Corridor and to try to reach new ridership in the area I'm here at the Union Station Terminus and I would like to start by mentioning how inconvenient the connection from the Metro is you first have to get out of the metro station walk halfway down the main Concourse go up two flights of escalators go through the entire bus station and parking garage across half of H Street walk down this middle sidewalk thing and then you get here to the platform this is probably one of the many reasons why the streetcar is not as well used as you would expect but I'll get more into that later interestingly the streetcar is a free service although people don't pay for the buses anyway so it doesn't really make a difference and uh here's what the departure boards look like they're quite basic but they do the job the car has a Mission with a lot of open space for standing room we have the driver's cab looks pretty standard and here's the line diagram the streetcar runs with I think two models of tram this is the more modern one and they also have a slightly older one as well I am a little disappointed that it's not a completely low floor tram which would be great but there's very few systems in the US if any that are completely low floor so that is to be expected [Music] they just announced that the streetcar is delayed due to traffic congestion you know who would have thought when there's not even a dedicated Lane thank you [Music] I decided to get off here at 13th Street to show what a side platform stop looks like before we get onto Benning Road which has Center platforms I really appreciate the level boarding and from a purely accessible perspective the streetcar is amazing because unlike a bus you can just roll or walk right on the only real problem so far that I've noticed is the traffic and especially during rush hour the bus can be twice as fast as a streetcar the streetcar wayfinding is also pretty nice you can see the entire line diagram where you are and what the next stops on the route will be here's the faster and much more convenient X2 bus coming by there's also an Express Bus the X9 but I don't think it runs on weekends oh there's the X2 bus again now I'm just gonna wait for the next street car and take it to the final stop Oklahoma Avenue I guess the benefit of the streetcar being free is that it is a Transit enthusiast's dream [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] so I've made it to the end of the line and I've realized that the streetcar isn't at all as useless as I thought it would be I think most people take the bus because it's faster during the rush hour and there's a straight connection downtown without having to do the weird thing at Union Station it's a dedicated center lane could be built on 8th Street and somehow a more convenient transfer to the Metro could be made I think the streetcar could be very useful and almost perfect really there's always talk of new lines to the streetcar like a new line to Georgetown but I doubt any of those will happen anytime soon but an extension is planned for this one down to the Benning Road metro station which does seem to be going along it's even on the maps here in a dotted black line [Music] I've decided to come over to the sadly fenced off green space that's actually part of a golf course to finish off the video that's all for me for today thanks everybody for watching and see you in the next one

Channel: Nathan's Transit Journeys

Views: 6,331

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Id: PCxN8p42r5E

Length: 5min 36sec (336 seconds)

Published: Sat May 27 2023