Laying Out a Path To Renewal

Thomas Evans, 68, a retired Navy rear admiral, frequently takes the bus from his home four blocks south of Columbia Pike to the Metro, where he catches a train to his volunteer job at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He and his wife have lived in the area since 1984 and consider themselves "neighborhood people," eating and shopping on the corridor.

Although he thinks trolleys would be an attractive feature for the redevelopment of Columbia Pike, he is concerned about the cost.

"In these times of tight budgets, I wonder if it's a cost-effective element of the project," Evans said. "I wonder how many buses we could buy for $100 million."

Sitting at a bus stop in the 2600 block of Columbia Pike, waiting to catch a ride to work recently, Susan Yockey, 34, said she doesn't care whether it's a bus or a trolley that she boards. She just wants it to be reliable.

"If it's going where I need to go, I'll take it," she said.

Despite lingering questions, officials say the trolley system is just the thing Columbia Pike needs to succeed.

"What you're doing is you're creating a better ride for people and also encouraging development along this corridor not unlike what Arlington County did with Metro on Wilson Boulevard and in Crystal City," Lynch said. "You concentrate your building activity on that corridor rather than doing what other jurisdictions do, which is to build parking ramps and bring in cars and traffic."

It's also about philosophy. Although buses may be convenient, some people just don't want to ride them, trolley proponents said.

"A lot of people don't see themselves as bus riders," DeCamp said. "But almost all of us in our own way would say, 'Yeah, I'll ride a streetcar.' You can [transform] Columbia Pike without rail, but it would be so much better with it."