The DC Streetcar was a streetcar system in Washington, D.C. that operated from 2016 to 2026 along a single line on H Street and Benning Road in the city's Northeast quadrant.
The streetcars were the first to run in the District of Columbia since 1962, when a previous streetcar system was dismantled. In 2009, the city government began laying track for two lines in Anacostia and Benning along street-running routes chosen to revitalize blighted commercial corridors. The Anacostia line never opened; operation began on the H Street/Benning Road Line on February 27, 2016. In , it handled 836,438 riders. The system was owned by the District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) and managed and operated by RATP Dev USA, the US arm of RATP Dev, a French transportation company. A trolleybus line was proposed to replace it by 2027.
Development
First iteration of streetcars
Between 1862 and 1962, streetcars in Washington, D.C., were a common mode of transportation, but the system was dismantled in the early 1960s as part of a switch to bus service.
Second iteration of streetcars In the late 1990s, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, commonly referred to as "Metro," began considering a series of rapid bus, light rail, and streetcar projects throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region as a means of providing intra-city and intra-regional mass transit and to meet the transit needs of the quickly growing population of the area. The first project was proposed for Alexandria, Virginia, in 1999. In January 2002, District of Columbia officials began studying the economic feasibility and costs of constructing a system of streetcars throughout the city. The project received Metro's backing. DDOT studied the feasibility of both a citywide system and one or more "starter" lines. D.C. Council Member David Catania specifically requested that DDOT study adding streetcars in the Anacostia neighborhood.
First line proposal DDOT issued a favorable report, and the D.C. Council approved an expenditure of $310 million for the streetcar project in September 2002. The first line to be built would be a "starter" streetcar line in Anacostia. The goal of the project was to bring light rail to Anacostia first (rather than last, as had happened with Metrorail), and to provide a speedier, more cost-effective way to link the neighborhood with the rest of the city.
Initially, the line was planned to run along the abandoned CSX railway tracks (known as the Shepherd Industrial Spur) from the Minnesota Avenue Metro station to the Anacostia Metro station, then cross the 11th Street Bridges before connecting with the and Metro stations. DDOT originally planned to purchase diesel multiple unit cars (self-propelled rail cars powered by diesel engines) from Colorado Railcar. Layton Lyndsey, reporting in The Washington Post, asserted the cars would be the first of their kind to be built in the United States and approved by the Federal Railroad Administration.
Financial problems Financing for the plan proved problematic. In November 2002, the same month that the D.C. government agreed to co-fund the streetcar project, Metro formally changed its strategic plan and proposed spending $12 billion over 10 years on rapid bus, light rail, and streetcar projects throughout the D.C. area.The change included the abandonment of previously-adopted plans to build several new heavy-rail Metrorail lines throughout the region. See: Layton, Lyndsey. "$12 Billion Metro Plan Has Trolleys, Rapid Buses." Washington Post. September 13, 2002. Metro proposed allocating half the total amount to build the D.C. streetcar line, complete the Silver Line, build a streetcar line on Columbia Pike in Arlington County in Virginia, and build a Purple Line light rail link between Bethesda and New Carrollton in Maryland. However, state and local governments said they were unable to fund Metro's proposal at that time, and the planned projects died. (Metro opened a portion of the Silver Line in 2014 and the remainder of the line opened in late 2022. The Purple line project was later funded through Maryland state and local funds and federal grants, and was scheduled to open in 2027.)
The District of Columbia subsequently decided to build the initial components of the DC Streetcar system on its own. The Anacostia line was scaled back to a demonstration project just in length with only four stations: Bolling Air Force Base, the Anacostia Metro station, the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE and Good Hope Road SE, and the Minnesota Avenue Metro station. DDOT began an environmental assessment of the CSX tracks in July 2003. In September 2004, Metro agreed to move ahead with the project (whose $45 million cost was now being funded completely by the District of Columbia), with construction to start in November 2004 and end in 2006.Smith, Candace. "Light Rail Closer to Coming to Anacostia." Associated Press. February 12, 2004; Greenfield, Heather. "Metro Decides on Station Openings Plus Future Expansion." Associated Press. September 16, 2004; Lively, Tarron. "Metro Approves Subsidy Increase." Washington Times. September 17, 2004.
Circulator oversight In December 2009, D.C. Councilmember Jim Graham proposed establishing a D.C. Transit Board to oversee the DC Circulator bus system as well as the DC Streetcar system. The board would oversee the establishment of routes and transit fares. In order to determine whether the local business community would support the streetcar project, several local real estate and commercial developers visited the Portland Streetcar system which operates in Portland, Oregon. The goal of the trip was to investigate whether streetcars had the intended positive economic consequences and whether the return on investment seemed worthwhile. Local media reports indicated that the D.C. developers were impressed by the effect streetcars had on Portland's economic development.
2011 announcement and more delays On August 22, 2011, DDOT announced the first streetcars would roll on the H Street line in the summer of 2013.
In April 2014, DDOT estimated that the H Street Line would open in the fall of 2014. A temporary car barn at the former Spingarn High School was scheduled for completion in July. Testing of the system would take several weeks, and then the system would need to be certified for operation by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which would take another 60 to 80 days. DDOT also said it needed to take delivery of a sixth streetcar, likely in June, before any testing could begin. With a decision on the fare structure still months off, Council Member Marion Barry threatened to cancel all funding for all planned DC Streetcar lines. Barry argued that the rider subsidy was too high and that the $800 million planned for construction of the remaining lines could be better used for road maintenance and school construction.
Closure
In May 2025, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced a 2026 budget proposal that would end funding for the streetcars. She said the service would be replaced within two years by an electric trolleybus that will use its overhead electric wires. In October 2025, she announced more budget cuts and said the system would close in March 2026.
The system ceased operations on March 31, 2026.
Rolling stock
Railcar fleet
The D.C. government owned six streetcars that served the system, built by two manufacturers to very similar designs.
The first three streetcars, numbered 101 through 103, were ordered in 2005 and built in the Czech Republic in 2007"Czechs trial Washington trams". Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, July 2007, p. 278. Light Rail Transit Association (UK). by Inekon Trams, for the Anacostia line, but because of delays in the start of construction of the line in Washington, they were stored in the Czech Republic until December 2009.Taplin, Mike (February 2014). "Washington, D.C.", in "New tramways for 2014". Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, p. 56. They are model 12 Trio.Webb, Mary (ed.) (2009). Jane's Urban Transport Systems 2009–2010, p. 526. Coulsdon, Surrey (UK): Jane's Information Group. . The second set of streetcars, initially numbered 13-001 through 13-003 (subsequently renumbered 201–203), were built in the U.S. in 2013 by United Streetcar, of Oregon, based on a Skoda design (model Skoda 10T) that was originally developed jointly by Inekon and Skoda, and the shared design history explains the similarity between the two designs. They are United Streetcar model 100. The first United car was delivered to DC Streetcar in January 2014 and the third and last in June 2014.Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, July 2014, p. 305. Visually, the United units differ from the Inekon cars in appearance with different fiberglass driver compartments, and cowling, but the overall dimensions are identical.
Each car was wide and long, and each car consists of three connected sections,Sun, Lena H. "Streetcars Could Be Running on D.C. Roads by Late Next Year." Washington Post. July 13, 2008. a design known as an articulated streetcar.
Rolling stock problems
Although DDOT awarded contracts to United Streetcar to build streetcars for the H Street/Benning Road line in mid-2011, these contracts were withdrawn and new bids solicited after the contract process was found to be flawed. D.C. City Council member Mary Cheh, chair of the council's transportation committee, said the DDOT's management of the streetcar project had lost the confidence of the public and that she would seek legislation establishing an independent authority to run the system. A new contract was awarded to United Streetcar in April 2012, for two streetcars, and the order was expanded to three cars in August 2012.
Ridership
Lines Operated lines
H Street NE/Benning Road Line
In 2003, then-Mayor Anthony A. Williams unveiled a draft Strategic Development Plan which proposed redeveloping and revitalizing six blighted areas of the city, including H Street NE and Benning Road.Wilgoren, Debbi. "New Residences, Stores To Transform H Street." Washington Post. March 13, 2003. Among the proposals to revitalize H Street was the construction of a streetcar line to downtown D.C. in five to 10 years. On January 20, 2006, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation announced that it would build a $13 million streetcar line on H Street NE, from Union Station to Benning Road and the Minnesota Avenue Metro station as part of its Great Streets initiative,Schwartzman, Paul. "Turning Northeast's H Street Into Main Street." Washington Post. February 9, 2006. on much of the same route established by the Columbia Railway Company in 1870. By 2008, the extension to the Minnesota Avenue Metro station had been dropped. Streetcar tracks were installed on H Street as part of the H Street/Benning Road Great Streets project that was started in December 2007 and ended on June 30, 2011.