Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
Buses aren’t as cool as trains. But they provide a much better bang for a city’s buck.
If you’re looking for a good deal on a streetcar, Washington, D.C., has you covered. The cute red conveyances that used to bustle along historic H Street were meant to spearhead “a citywide streetcar revival,” Axios reports. Instead, only two miles of the planned network were ever finished, riders didn’t materialize, and D.C.’s H line became, “the little streetcar that couldn’t.” Now the city has shut down the line and begun auctioning off the streetcars.
In recent decades, many rail-based transit projects have fallen into a similar pattern. City planners propose a convenient network of streetcars, trolleys, or most commonly, higher-capacity light-rail lines. Voters approve. Money gets allocated. And then, like clockwork, construction costs skyrocket, delays pile up and the project gets scaled back. When they do finally open, most light-rail lines fail to attract the promised riders. Nonetheless, political leaders and transit experts keep proposing supposedly visionary rail projects that, history shows, will likely become underutilized money pits.
The backlash comes later. The sprawling Dallas Area Rapid Transit network, for example, serves Dallas and 12 surrounding communities, which levy sales taxes to support the service. But member cities endlessly debate whether DART’s light-rail service is worth the cost, while riders complain about crime and grime. Last month, residents of North Dallas’s Highland Park voted overwhelmingly to leave the system.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Wall Street Journal (paywall)
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James B. Meigs is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a City Journal contributing editor.