We Are NOT Expendable: Councilman Jim Graham pushes H Street streetcar over Anacostia

I can't hate too hard on CM Graham because he is doing what our councilmember should be doing for us - advocating for his constituents.  But it still annoys me to no end that everyone in DC (who btw doesn't live over here)  seems so enthusiastic in what Ward 8 can do without.  Perhaps we need to show Councilmember Graham and Councilmember Wells that the Ward 8 and East of the River community does indeed want and need a street car. You can email them both at jgraham@dccouncil.us and twells@dccouncil.us.

Even if you just send an email with "We are not expendable- Ward 8 wants it's street cars" in the subject line perhaps that will show we are serious about this. If no one will fight for us we must fight for ourselves.

Washington Business Journal - by Michael Neibauer

A key D.C. councilman wants the H Street link of the District’s planned streetcar network to take priority over the delay-plagued Anacostia line.

Jim Graham, D-Ward 1, in a letter to Mayor Adrian Fenty, cited heavier demand for the

H Street line and a lack of demonstrated interest in the Southeast route.

The D.C. Department of Transportation is laying track on H Street as it continues a

$30 million overhaul of the corridor. Tracks already are in place on Benning Road as far east as Oklahoma Avenue at RFK Stadium. But the project plays second fiddle to the long-planned Anacostia “demonstration” line between South Capitol Street and the Anacostia Metro station, along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue.

Graham wrote to Fenty that he wants H Street to take the lead, to bring a new transportation option to “one of our busiest transit corridors” where there is “no question about the demand.”

“This route will have immediate economic development impacts and provide rail transit to an area that is currently not served by Metrorail,” wrote Graham, chairman of the public works and transportation committee.

Graham recently said he has “definitely encouraged the higher priority to go to H Street,” because streetcars there will “activate and energize” the corridor. But the Anacostia line, he suggested in his letter to Fenty, is expendable. There is little evidence that those streetcars will benefit D.C. residents, he said, or that the community even wants them.

“The principal argument for moving forward has been that we need to demonstrate what streetcars can accomplish,” Graham wrote. “With successful streetcar lines in cities across the country, I do not find this a compelling reason.”

In his fiscal 2011 capital budget, Fenty proposes to bankroll a 1.95-mile H Street/Benning line with $40 million — well shy of its $73 million price tag. Graham controls DDOT’s purse strings: If the council hopes to invest even more, perhaps at the Anacostia line’s expense, it will have to do so when it approves the budget May 25.

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