The Hill is Home has been publishing some Capitol Hill ghost stories this month. In one, from 1896, a streetcar comes to a sudden halt as the gripman is sure he’s run over a bicyclist. But there’s nobody under the wheels. Why?

“I am haunted by a cyclist, and if you like I’ll tell you why I, more than all the other gripmen, should be thus cursed,” the gripman tells a reporter. He proceeds to explain the haunting, and the circumstances that led to it.

Did the ghosts of cyclists proceed to haunt Metrobuses after the demise of the streetcars? Or only in the form of ghost bikes?

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Tagged: capitol hill, dc, ghost stories, streetcars, transit

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.