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The DC Streetcar is a surface Tram network in Washington, D.C., that runs a single line in street running along H Street and Benning Road in the city's Northeast quadrant. Opened in 2016, it is slated to close in March 2026.
The streetcars are the first to run in the District of Columbia since 1962, when a previous streetcar system was dismantled. In 2009, the city government began laying track for two lines in Anacostia and Benning along routes chosen to revitalize blighted commercial corridors. The Anacostia line never opened; operation began on the H Street/Benning Road Line on February 27, 2016; In , it handled 836,438 riders. The system is owned by the District of Columbia Department of Transportation (DDOT) and managed and operated by RATP Dev USA, the US arm of RATP Group, a French transportation company.
In May 2025, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser decided not to renew funding for the streetcars. In October 2025, she announced more budget cuts and said the system would close in March 2026. The service is to be replaced by a trolleybus line within two years.
Initially, the line was planned to run along the abandoned CSX railway tracks (known as the Shepherd Industrial Spur) from the Minnesota Avenue Metro station to the Anacostia Metro station, then cross the 11th Street Bridges before connecting with the and Metro stations. DDOT originally planned to purchase diesel multiple unit cars (self-propelled rail cars powered by ) from Colorado Railcar. Layton Lyndsey, reporting in The Washington Post, asserted the cars would be the first of their kind to be built in the United States and approved by the Federal Railroad Administration.
The District of Columbia subsequently decided to build the initial components of the DC Streetcar system on its own. The Anacostia line was scaled back to a demonstration project just in length with only four stations: Bolling Air Force Base, the Anacostia Metro station, the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue SE and Good Hope Road SE, and the Minnesota Avenue Metro station. DDOT began an environmental assessment of the CSX tracks in July 2003. In September 2004, Metro agreed to move ahead with the project (whose $45 million cost was now being funded completely by the District of Columbia), with construction to start in November 2004 and end in 2006.Smith, Candace. "Light Rail Closer to Coming to Anacostia." Associated Press. February 12, 2004; Greenfield, Heather. "Metro Decides on Station Openings Plus Future Expansion." Associated Press. September 16, 2004; Lively, Tarron. "Metro Approves Subsidy Increase." Washington Times. September 17, 2004.
In April 2014, DDOT estimated that the H Street Line would open in the fall of 2014. A temporary car barn at the former Spingarn High School was scheduled for completion in July. Testing of the system would take several weeks, and then the system would need to be certified for operation by the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), which would take another 60 to 80 days. DDOT also said it needed to take delivery of a sixth streetcar, likely in June, before any testing could begin. With a decision on the fare structure still months off, Council Member Marion Barry threatened to cancel all funding for all planned DC Streetcar lines. Barry argued that the rider subsidy was too high and that the $800 million planned for construction of the remaining lines could be better used for road maintenance and school construction.
The first three streetcars, numbered 101 through 103, were ordered in 2005 and built in the Czech Republic in 2007"Czechs trial Washington trams". Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, July 2007, p. 278. Light Rail Transit Association (UK). by Inekon Trams, for the Anacostia line, but because of delays in the start of construction of the line in Washington, they were stored in the Czech Republic until December 2009.Taplin, Mike (February 2014). "Washington, D.C.", in "New tramways for 2014". Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, p. 56. They are model 12 Trio.Webb, Mary (ed.) (2009). Jane's Urban Transport Systems 2009–2010, p. 526. Coulsdon, Surrey (UK): Jane's Information Group. . The second set of streetcars, initially numbered 13-001 through 13-003 (subsequently renumbered 201–203), were built in the U.S. in 2013 by United Streetcar, of Oregon, based on a Skoda design (model Skoda 10T) that was originally developed jointly by Inekon and Skoda, and the shared design history explains the similarity between the two designs. They are United Streetcar model 100. The first United car was delivered to DC Streetcar in January 2014 and the third and last in June 2014. Tramways & Urban Transit magazine, July 2014, p. 305. Visually, the United units differ from the Inekon cars in appearance with different fiberglass driver compartments, and cowling, but the overall dimensions are identical.
Each car is wide and long, and each car consists of three connected sections,Sun, Lena H. "Streetcars Could Be Running on D.C. Roads by Late Next Year." Washington Post. July 13, 2008. a design known as an articulated streetcar.
In late August 2011, DDOT announced the H Street Line would begin operation in the summer of 2013. City officials said all platform stops had been constructed along the route, but overhead electricity lines, turnarounds at each end of the line, a streetcar overnight holding facility ("car barn"), maintenance facility, and three power substations remained to be built. On December 17, 2012, DC Streetcar officials said only 20 percent of the H Street line remained to be completed, and that they anticipated streetcars to be rolling in October 2013. Testing on the H Street-Benning Road Line began in August 2014, with a planned opening date for the line in late 2014. After more delays, the line had been tentatively projected to open in January 2015, but on January 16 the DDOT's director Leif Dormsjo announced that the Department would no longer issue any estimates for an opening date and that he intended to reorganize the project's management team. On February 21, 2015, a brief flash fire was ignited on the top of a streetcar in simulated service. The D.C. Streetcar's Latest Problem: Catching on Fire In early March 2015, DDOT suggested that the project may be scrapped entirely, if an outside review being conducted by the American Public Transportation Association found "fatal flaws", but the findings, released on March 16, found no "fatal flaws" in the project. Dan Malouff, a writer for the Greater Greater Washington website, reported on July 10, 2015, that a review prepared for the DDOT had identified 33 causes for continued delay in rolling out fare service. He said that none of the reported causes for delay were considered "fatal", but the DDOT had not yet responded to the report with a prediction as to when all the problems would be attended to.
The DC Streetcar's H Street/Benning line eventually began public service operations on February 27, 2016.
, DDOT intended to extend the line by two miles east (3.2 km) to the Benning Road Metro stop. This proposed extension was delayed indefinitely in 2023.
Construction of 24/7 bus and streetcar only lanes is planned for 2025. The transit lanes will be installed between 3rd Street NE and Benning Road, alongside improvements to bus stops and transit signal priority.
Muriel Bowser's 2026 budget proposal included a plan to phase out the streetcar by 2029, replacing it with an electric bus capable of using the existing overhead electric wires.
DDOT and Metro announced in April 2006 that work on the revised streetcar line in Anacostia would start again in a few months.Gowen, Annie. "Fairfax Board on Track To Consider Streetcars." Washington Post. April 30, 2006; Lively, Tarron. "Metro Fares Unlikely to Rise Until '08." Washington Times. May 3, 2006. The new deadline for completion of the now-$10 million, 1.1-mile (1.7 km) line was set for the spring of 2008.Emerling, Gary and Ward, Jon. "Streetcars Return to D.C." Washington Times. January 5, 2007; "A Streetcar Named Development in D.C." United Press International. January 5, 2007. DDOT opened bids for the now-$45 million contract to construct the Anacostia Line's tracks and infrastructure in August 2008. In April 2009, DDOT announced that the Anacostia streetcar line would not be complete until at least 2012. The delays had caused the warranty on the mothballed Czech-produced streetcars to expire, and storage costs were running $860,000 a year. Track to the Anacostia station finally began to be laid in September 2009, with a completion date in the fall of 2012.Young, Joseph. "Streetcars Set to Run Again in the District." Washington Times. August 26, 2009.
On August 26, 2010, DDOT officials ordered construction of the Anacostia Line shut down after city officials refused to extend the construction contract or give a new contract to another firm. Although $25 million had been spent over the past two years, rails at the intersection of Firth Stirling Avenue SE and Suitland Parkway were buried under asphalt and weeds grew among the rails at South Capitol Street and Bolling Air Force Base. In 2014, DDOT said it was planning to spend $64 million to begin construction on the Anacostia Line Extension from the Anacostia Metro station to the 11th Street Bridges. The agency said it would also spend another $16 million to acquire the right-of-way currently owned by railroad company CSX Transportation and $15 million to build a car barn for the line extension. DDOT applied for a $20 million National Infrastructure Investments — Consolidated Appropriations Act grant to assist it in building the extension. However, , no further work has taken place on the line.
In January 2010, The Washington Post reported that the K Street Line would probably be the third line to be constructed.Smith, Will and Wellborn, Mark. "From Seedy to Sought-After: D.C.'s Mount Vernon Triangle Becoming Urban Village." Washington Post. January 30, 2010. The K Street Line would extend from Union Station to K Street NE, then run west to 26th Street NW. It would link with the H Street/Benning Road Line at Union Station via a pedestrian bridge which would require passengers to alight at Union Station and board an unconnected line. The two lines would thus form a cross-city streetcar line, although not directly. DDOT officials confirmed in August 2011 that linking to the H Street Line was still the option. To help move the K Street line forward, the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District (Downtown BID) proposed in March 2012 to fund a plan that would lay out how K Street should be reconfigured for streetcars, and how a K Street streetcar line would be planned, constructed, maintained, and serviced. The board of directors of the Downtown BID proposed a self-imposed $258 million tax on hotels and commercial property within the district to fund BID projects, which included the streetcar design proposal.Neibauer, Michael. "Proposed Hike in Downtown D.C. BID Tax Rate Will Fund 100-Item To-Do List." Washington Business Journal. March 22, 2012. It is included in the Constrained Long-Range Transportation Plan.
Another streetcar line was proposed for Maine Avenue SW. In October 2010, the D.C. government unveiled its long-awaited, $1.5 billion development proposal for the city's southwest waterfront district.Kravitz, Derek. "Southwest D.C. Waterfront Proposal Shaping Up." Washington Post. October 7, 2010. This proposal included a DC Streetcar line down the middle of the entire length of Maine Avenue.
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