Some cities know when to pull the plug on failed transit schemes
Washington, D.C. faces reality and shuts down its little-used, overpriced streetcar line. A case study for VTA? PJ Media tells the tale.
The Democrat-run city of Washington, D.C., is derailing its $200 million boondoggle streetcar system only 10 years after the streetcars began to operate.
The costly D.C. streetcar system, only 2.2 miles long, is going into the trash heap 15 years after the track was first laid and only a decade into operations. The streetcars were justified originally as being more “environmentally friendly” and more accessible. They were also meant to be more “aesthetically pleasing.” Instead, the streetcar system was a cash-draining catastrophe and will soon be replaced again with buses.
D.C. mayor and professional incompetent Muriel Bowser desperately tried to obscure the failure of the streetcar line by asserting that the electric bus replacement is a “next generation streetcar,” National Pulse noted.
Expect more disasters — electric vehicles are expensive, inefficient, and the batteries die faster and are very toxic to manufacture and dispose of. Not to mention our already strained grid can’t really handle increases in electric vehicles.
The electric bus that will replace the H Street streetcar will utilize the existing overhead power cables, meaning it will still suffer from some of the existing drawbacks that the failed street-level rail system did.
Notably, the existing rail line lacks a barrier separating it from the street, which has resulted in the streetcar being unable to proceed forward when a car is double-parked and blocking its track. While the electric bus will not be confined to a track in the same manner as the streetcar, the overhead cables will still limit its maneuverability.
The National Pulse emphasized the failure of the streetcar system:
"In over one decade of operation, the D.C. streetcar has never once generated a single dollar of revenue. It operates on a $10 million taxpayer subsidy per year. After years of delays and cost overruns, an eventual rushed rollout of the streetcar caused city officials to neglect installing a fare collection system on the streetcar. Eventually, the city government gave up on any plans to charge streetcar riders as the single 2.2-mile line struggled to match the capacity of buses running along the same route."
Read the whole thing here.
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