Happy birthday, DC Streetcar! Yesterday was the first anniversary of opening day. This year hasn't been perfect, but the streetcar steadily gained riders and has generally beaten expectations. 

According to monthly ridership reports, January 2017 was the streetcar's busiest month yet, in both total riders for the month and in average riders per weekday. 

January 21, the day of the Women's March, was the busiest single day since opening day itself, with 7, 347 riders. That was a Saturday, though, and obviously a unique event. 

The bigger story is how weekday ridership has grown over the year. For most of the streetcar's first six months open, more people rode on Saturdays than on any weekday. But as people have become familiar with the streetcar, it's evolved from curiousity to reliable fact of life. The number of people riding just to check it out has dropped, while those using it to commute has shot up.

In January, for the first time, ridership passed above 3, 000 per weekday. At that level, the streetcar is performing at 236% of DDOT’s pre-opening estimate of 1, 300 daily riders. 

That's far below the roughly 14, 000 people who ride H Street buses every day, but it's not bad given the shortness of the line, and the trend is strongly positive. 

Far from perfect, but better than expectations

The streetcar would still fare better with dedicated lanes, and the crossovers at 3rd Street and Starburst still slow most trips. Those problems absolutely exist. But they haven't derailed the entire operation. 

According to Martin DiCaro's WAMU story on the anniversary, the streetcar is marginally faster than the X2 thanks to fewer stops and faster loading, and is doing so well that DDOT is considering improving service to run every nine minutes.

For a line that had the roughest of openings, it's been a surprisingly good year. 

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DDOT's latest plan to redesign Florida Avenue shows a high quality protected bikeway between NoMa and West Virginia Avenue. 

Florida Avenue protected bikeway proposal. Image by DDOT.

This new plan came as a surprise when DDOT presented it Tuesday night. Previous plans had only called for shorter unprotected bike lanes. 

But this stretch of Florida Avenue is the only practical connection for people riding bikes to NoMa Metro from the Trinidad neighborhood or much of DC's Near Northeast. Since collisions have been a problem here, and since the street is wider than the fast-moving car traffic on it warrants, a stronger bikeway makes sense. 

Details of the design

The complete block-by-block plan is available online. It shows a two-way curb-protected bikeway on the south side of Florida Avenue,  beginning at 3rd Street NE just east of the Red Line Metrorail tracks, and running east until 9th Street NE just shy of West Virginia Avenue. 

To reach West Virginia, the key connection into Trinidad and north into Ivy City, the bikeway jumps up onto the sidewalk for one block. DDOT will widen that sidewalk so it can accommodate people on both bikes and foot. From there, a two-stage bike box will help cyclists turn left onto West Virginia.

Bikes will use the sidewalk and a two-stage bike box between 9th Street and West Virginia Avenue. Image by DDOT.

East of West Virginia Avenue, Florida Avenue narrows significantly. DDOT isn't proposing to carry the bikeway into the narrower section. 

That stub ending has riled some community members, who've reached out to Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie to push for extending the bikeway all the way to Starburst intersection, where Florida Avenue ends. But extending the bike lanes east of West Virginia would likely mean either removing parking or making Florida Avenue one-way, both long-shot propositions. 

As of now, this plan is at the 30% design level, which means engineers have a basic design for the entire length of the project, but it's not yet precise enough to actually build. The full construction-level design will take another year to prepare; DDOT says to expect it in Spring of 2018.

In the meantime, you can use the project website to learn more, and to leave comments.

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If you were an elementary school student the 1930s, this Dodge school bus might have been your ride. It carried students in Salem and Roanoke County, Virginia. 

Check out the inside, with its child-sized benches and aisles. Who wouldn’t want to face the middle, or lean back against another kid? 

The bus is on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke. The museum’s fascinating collection also includes this vintage 1945 streetcar from DC Transit. It ran on line 20, from Union Station to Glen Echo. 

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