DC Streetcar: $200 Million Trolley to Nowhere, Conservative Review, reviews the streetcar as a trolley to nowhere. I have to take exception to that description. Considering its source, I feel it has other implications.
First, to say that all transit lines are a road to nowhere, is a misnomer. It may end in a nowhere place, but it travels through some places so it does connect some places. True, they could extend the terminus, of the DC Streetcar, a mile or so to connect a Metro station. It does begin behind Union Station. But, building a new transit system, we have to begin someplace and than expand. 200 million is a high cost, but spread that over lifetime and it is not all that much. As I rode it, people used it. It stopped at almost every stop to take on and let off passengers. So, there are a lot of people on the road to nowhere.
Upon looking at the ridership, and I assume, the nature of the neighborhoods it serves most, it was mostly African American. Considering the critique of the line, from a conservative source, meant that it was to expensive to serve "those" people. If it had been a white neighborhood and the African Americans were servants of the white population, they may have seen some value. Just my opinion on my observation.
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