In our inbox: DC Streetcar vs. X2 Bus, Yellow Line turnback, missing middle & fake tags

GGWash wants to hear from you! Our periodic Emails to the Editor column is your chance to sound off about stories you’ve seen in GGWash. Learn more about how to submit an Email to the Editor for possible publication.

DC Streetcar vs. X2 Bus

Thanks for the article on the H Street Streetcar vs. the X2. The experiment would seem to offer some support to the conclusion that streetcars really need a dedicated lane or right of way. It’s questionable from a cost benefit perspective whether a streetcar without a dedicated right of way or lane really offers much value for money. Particularly since service frequency and speed have been shown to be the most important factor in whether a particular transit option can get people out of cars and into transit (see YouTuber Reece Martin and his RM transit channel and Substack for more on that). More frequent and speedy buses are arguably better than a slower streetcar running in mixed traffic.

Certainly, if DC were going to plan additional streetcar lines, this should only be done with dedicated lanes or right of ways, not tracks in mixed traffic. Thanks for running the article and the experiment.

Oh, separate matter, but bravo to Dan Reed’s testimony on rent stabilization in MoCo.

P.A. Brown, Bethesda, Md.

On turning back the Yellow Line at Mount Vernon Square

Reading Tracy Hadden Loh’s April 4 essay “Why it’s OK to turn back Metrorail’s Yellow Line,” I found it extremely disheartening to see the board chair of the DC region’s premier urbanist, pro-transit organization try to talk residents of the burgeoning northern Green Line corridor into believing the failure to restore Yellow Line service to Greenbelt is somehow a good thing. What the piece didn’t mention is the fact that aside from reducing capacity to points north, turning back the Yellow Line at Mt. Vernon Square has never been a particularly smooth or speedy process. I think Metro’s promise of six-minute headways will end up being a pipe dream for passengers headed northbound. Countless times I’ve stood on the platform there, watching the Yellow Line train slowly move onto the pocket track in herky-jerky fashion while the Green Line is stuck behind it, and passengers on the crowded platform get more and more frustrated. Simply put, it’s a terrible place to turn trains around, cutting off the most dense walkshed of the entire Metro system (Columbia Heights) from fast and reliable service to DCA and northern Virginia. Essentially, the combined Green and Yellow lines form an upside-down Y, and to provide the most service to the most people, trains that originate at the tips of the Y should both continue to the end before returning. We should not be reducing transit service to tens of thousands of diverse people and forcing a transfer in areas with fast growing TOD. No, it’s not OK to turn back the Yellow Line.

Anthony T. Nigrelli, Hyattsville, Md., and formerly Columbia Heights, DC

A Missing Middle caveat

I initially read with optimism your piece: “County Board contention became consensus in Arlington’s missing middle battle,” published on March 27. But, I am concerned that this article’s tone oversells the actual developments. The tone is positive: missing middle housing was approved, despite opposition. But when I read the article in detail, a massive caveat appears; upzoning from single-family to 4-unit or 6-unit homes is limited to 58 properties per year. Not 58 properties per census tract, or per zoning district, or some other such category, but 58 properties total in all of Arlington County! A county with 120,000 properties. I guess something is better than nothing, but I’m not sure whether this accomplishes enough to be worth the fanfare.

Mark Nelson, Assistant Professor, American University, Washington, DC

Fake tag frustration

Thank you for running the fake tags piece. I drive in E. Capitol Hill, Kingman Park, Benning, and Deanwood twice a week, and the rising presence of paper temporary tags in these neighborhoods is notable. This correlates directly to rising traffic fatalities and serious traffic injuries in these neighborhoods.

I also drive through Northwest DC to Georgetown twice a week, and see paper temporary tags in that quadrant at far lower frequency, confirming the author’s observations. My anecdotal sense is that the only traffic enforcement in DC is via automated cameras, and this is meaningless for those with fake tags. I do not see any evidence that DC is addressing this in any way—and the article suggests that the Council has decided to allow this to proliferate. In its reluctance to increase the burden of traffic fines on working-class residents of neighborhoods along the Anacostia, the Council has given free reign to dangerous scofflaws.

This is an area where pressure and continued coverage from GGWash could make a life-saving difference.

Bryan McCann, Silver Spring, Md.