Photo by thisisbossi on Flickr.

Leif Dormsjo testified last Friday that DDOT could scrap the streetcar entirely. Was the project doomed from the start? Is the streetcar’s close proximity to parked cars a dangerous situation? Where do we go from here?

Dorsmsjo said later that he is waiting on the report that the American Public Transportation Association is preparing. Once he gets it, he’ll review whether the streetcar is safe for passengers and other vehicles.

According to the Post, the streetcar has had 11 fender benders with cars. A lot of the incidents happened because people had parked their cars too far from the curb or as they were opening their doors into the streetcar’s path.

We asked our contributors to weigh in on this latest piece of streetcar news.

Tony Goodman, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in NoMa, says it is time for the streetcar to carry passengers.

The streetcar needs to start accepting passengers ASAP.  Cut the ribbon already!  It’s already been running for months, and has been eagerly anticipated by residents and businesses for years.  To reach the full potential of this line, DDOT needs to continue with extensions to the west and east right away as well.

Perhaps it would have been better if this stretch had dedicated lanes, but that’s certainly not necessary for a modern streetcar line, and it wouldn’t have alleviated complaints from those who would likely oppose any other transit improvements as well.  There is nothing complicated or novel about DDOT’s approach to the design and construction of this line.  The only thing unique is that a new administration is bizarrely refusing to open up a completed piece of vital infrastructure.

Most troubling about recent developments, says Kelli Raboy, is the lack of transparency on what, exactly, is causing the holdup.

It’s really critical that DDOT and Mayor Bowser begin sharing with the public what their actual, specific concerns are with the streetcar. I keep hearing, vaguely, that there are issues with safety and utility. But this is a project that has gone through numerous environmental and economic reviews over several years. Why are those studies not sufficient to satisfy this administration? And what does that mean for so many other planned (or nearly complete!) projects?

Aimee Custis pointed out that one of the purposes of the streetcar is to fill in DC’s transit needs for a next generation of transit, and short of major investment in Metro, a lack of transit investment (whether the streetcar or otherwise) will seriously hurt DC in the long run.

Topher Mathews weighed in that a lot of this most recent round of speculation is hype:

Media headlines have been spinning Dormsjo’s comments to feed into the frenzy they themselves have been cultivating. The way I read it is that the project is aimless and has been incredibly poorly managed. The only thing that could save it is exactly what Dormsjo is proposing: a rigorous top-to-bottom re-evaluation. Maybe it’s just political cover to hide a decision that’s already been made, but if that’s true then it doesn’t matter anyway.

My only wish with this is that this newly acquired flinty-eyed skepticism is applied across all modes. Sure, streetcars in shared traffic is not the best way to move people, but neither is allowing M St. or 16th St. to clog up beyond capacity twice-a-day with cars from Maryland or Virginia. People are coming out of the woodwork now saying that it’s so completely obvious that transit needs its own lane. Great! Let’s do that! And all those people scorning streetcar as a waste better be ready to step up and shout down the inevitable whining that will result from actually moving forward with that idea.

As the streetcar continues to make headlines without opening for passenger service, what are your thoughts about Dormjo’s latest statements? Tell us in the comments.