Former critics of abandoned plans to build a streetcar on Columbia Pike are seeing vindication in the looming demise of a similar piece of infrastructure in D.C.
After D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) announced plans last week to phase out the District’s 2.2-mile H Street streetcar line, some Arlington commentators are drawing parallels to former plans for a 5-mile system between Pentagon City and Skyline.
Underscoring the difficult logistics of D.C.’s streetcar service, especially its high price tag, onetime opponents of the Columbia Pike streetcar hold up the latest news as evidence that Arlington’s initiative wouldn’t have worked.
“It’s never good to say ‘I told you so,’ but guess what — I told you so,” said John Antonelli, one of the Columbia Pike streetcar’s most vocal critics in the early 2010s.
When it debuted in February 2016, the H Street streetcar line was heralded as a new approach to transit. It was expected to be the first of many lines connecting various neighborhoods in the city.
Instead, it’s on track to be replaced with an electric bus service using existing overhead power lines.
City officials cited the high cost of replacing or refurbishing existing streetcar vehicles in their decision to pull the plug. The nearly decade-long experiment in fare-free streetcar service cost the District about $200 million, according to one estimate.
It will mark the second time streetcar service has died in D.C. Like many cities, streetcars were familiar sights for much of the early and mid 20th century, but the last one in the nation’s capital was phased out in 1962.
In the 1990s-2000s, Antonelli was among Arlington’s most engaged and frequently quoted civic activists. He was among those who viewed the Columbia Pike streetcar proposal as too much infrastructure for too little payoff in transportation improvements.
“I just want to say right here and right now that I was right, right, right,” Antonelli said in an email at ARLnow. “In the end, this was not about good transit — it was about increasing density.”
The Columbia Pike streetcar proposal seemed a sure bet as early planning efforts started. But as costs ballooned to an estimated $350 million for construction, with millions more in anticipated future operating subsidies, opposition began to build.
Until the spring of 2014, the proposal had been supported by four of five County Board members, with only Libby Garvey opposing it.
The election of independent John Vihstadt in the spring of 2014, filling a seat vacated by the resignation of Chris Zimmerman, gave Garvey an ally. But the other three board members — Jay Fisette, Mary Hynes and Walter Tejada — remained rock-solid in their support.
When Vihstadt retained the seat in the 2014 general election, Fisette and Hynes flipped on the issue, moving to opposition and killing it off.
Then and now, Fisette said his change of heart was an effort to avoid further community discord.
“While I believe our streetcar plan was solid and could have succeeded, I remain convinced that the debate and controversy would have distracted and consumed our community for many years and likely slowed or prevented many other important policy initiatives,” Fisette told ARLnow after D.C.’s decision was announced last month.
Vihstadt, also commenting after the D.C. decision, said he had no regrets in opposing the Columbia Pike project.
“I’m grateful that Arlington taxpayers and commuters were spared the streetcar albatross,” he told ARLnow. “The District’s action has vindicated our views.”
Columbia Pike “continues to grow new housing and remains the only semi-affordable corridor in Arlington,” Vihstadt said.
While often critical of the county’s Democratic leadership, Antonelli said that the community benefited from taking its time on the issue.
“Some talk about how the Arlington Way has gone away, and maybe that’s true, and some say that the Arlington Way is too slow,” he said. “At least in this case, the Arlington Way worked.”
Another who voiced concerns about the Columbia Pike proposal a decade ago, Dave Schutz, said the D.C. streetcar has been hindered by the same challenges that would have done in the Columbia Pike proposal:
“H Street is heavily trafficked, and drivers are prone to double park or stop for ‘just a minute,’ slowing the trolley and making scheduling unreliable. The streetcar which was proposed for Columbia Pike would have had similar issues — neither line could have moved faster than auto traffic.”
“Arlington dodged a bullet in cancelling those plans,” Schutz said.
Like D.C., Arlington itself once was criss-crossed by streetcar lines, providing connections to the nation’s capital as well as Alexandria and Fairfax County.
In the years since the Pike proposal’s 2014 demise, county leaders have worked to upgrade bus service on the Pike as part of a broader infrastructure-improvement effort.
Because there’s no feasible way to expand the roadway to provide dedicated bus lanes, those improvements are likely to be the best that can be done for the corridor. Those limitations, however, haven’t stopped planners from envisioning a bus-rapid-transit service through the corridor.
Fisette, who left office in 2017 after 20 years on the County Board, said today’s leaders owe it to Columbia Pike to follow through on promises.
“Let’s get Columbia Pike and its enhanced transit system finished and fully connected to National Landing,” he said.
Schutz said long-term investment should consider all possibilities.
“The Pike would still benefit from transit which can be faster than traffic in a dedicated roadway, which could only be elevated or below ground,” he said.
Antonelli, who long has lived on the Pike, said he’d be interested in what might come next from transit proponents related to the corridor.
“I’d love to hear what the Trolley Folly supporters have to say now,” he said. “I suspect their response will be that we should have gone with a gondola.”
