Just a note- I was in the streetcar museum/gift shop in San Fran a few weeks back. The streetcar guru showed me a picture of an old DC streetcar and I think he mentioned it still gets circulated through their system on occasion. Their collection gets rotated pretty regularly. It wasn't running the day I was there unfortunately.

by Alex on Sep 21, 2009 4:00 pm  

See them in action at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5H2r3AwqjQ

by kreeggo on Sep 21, 2009 4:30 pm  

Thomas Circle seems to have already been footballed in that image above.

Also, what is the structure at 14th and C? Was there another underground turnaround? Was it inside the Hoover Building or something?

by цarьchitect on Sep 21, 2009 6:13 pm  

Nevermind, they're in southwest.

by цarьchitect on Sep 21, 2009 6:14 pm  

Let's not get rolled by a wave of nostalgia for a relatively short period of urban history. If there is to be a serious discussion of public transportation let's look at the best contemporary examples such as can be found all over the world.

Jaime Lerner, the architect/mayor of Curitaba, Brazil, inauguarated an urban revival with a relatively low-tech but well-conceived and designed bus system. This model has been adopted across South America, in particular by Enrique Peñalosa, of Bogota, Columbia.

Nostalgia can be as limiting and parochial as it might be enlightening of local history. I'd rather we made history as an expression of our own time than be perceived as too timid to make a mark of our own.

I worry that too narrow a focus on "lost Washington" will only confirm the overweening tendency of the preservationists to drive out all other species of ideas.

by JH on Sep 21, 2009 6:18 pm  

Can you tell us about the underground streetcar segment at dupont circle? Whats it doing now?

by J on Sep 21, 2009 7:35 pm  

I'm pretty much in the dark about the proposal to open the station under Dupont as an exhibition space as anyone else.

The Deputy Mayor's Office has had to resolve some legal anomalies before it can issue the RFEI. Not sure of the status of that resolution. And there seems to have been a determination that community meetings might be in order before the final RFEI takes shape. However, this is nothing more that my own speculations on the causes of the long delay.

If the city decides it wants to hold the space for a possible future streetcar station, I don't think the proposal for an exhibition space will stand in the way, given its light infrastructural footprint. However, I wouldn't want to see the mere possibility of a "future" use as a station leave the space empty for years or even decades given the track record of timely action by our municipal government.

However, I suspect that a serious feasibility study will reveal a certain redundancy in the overlapping function of the Metro below that has superseded the line of the old Connecticut Avenue line leaving little more than nostalgia as a motive to restore the station to its former, rather modest, glory.

by JH on Sep 21, 2009 8:52 pm  

Tsarchitecht:

The 14th Street line terminated at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. There was an underground track loop there, I assume those pictures at from that.

http://www.dctrolley.org/dctrolleymap.htm

by Alex B. on Sep 21, 2009 11:02 pm  

Random historical question: Were D.C. streetcars and buses segregated?

by Gavin Baker on Sep 22, 2009 1:59 am  

I was wondering where I could find or if you could post a map of D.C.'s streetcar networks/systems. As was done with Los Angeles's Pacific Electric Railway network:

http://www.erha.org/pe_system_map.jpg

http://www.lastreetcar.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Relief_Map_Pacific_Electric_Railway.jpg

Thank you!

by Justin Swabash on Sep 22, 2009 2:43 am  

There's a cool sight where you can buy actual videotape taken from every Washington DC trolley line before they where dismantled. It's http://www.transitgloriamundi.com/
I haven't seen the tapes themselves but I'm sure something at that sight will be of interest to all nostalgia buffs.

by Thayer-D on Sep 22, 2009 6:19 am  

Here is one map:

http://dctrolley.org/dctrolleymap.htm

But the system was more comprehensive a short time earlier. I have not been able to find the more encompassing map.

by Andrew on Sep 22, 2009 6:37 am  

the underground streetcar turnaround at the BEP still exists- tracks and all- but it is used for employee parking.

by w on Sep 22, 2009 10:41 am  

@Gavin: Not legally, although there were many efforts. African Americans were prohibited from operating streetcards and buses until 1955. ATU 689 put together a video series that describes efforts to fight segregation. See http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=F37479F6C5845977

by kreeggo on Sep 22, 2009 1:12 pm  

Thayer

I bought a whole group of DVDs of the old DC trolley system a few years back.
It was one of the largest systems in the entire USA.
Even in the 1880's, it went all over the city and out into many suburban regions.

by w on Sep 22, 2009 3:30 pm