Transit Plan on Track

Officials said a 12-inch deep track slab design will reduce the time needed to construct the tracks.

The Anacostia project was originally slated to be longer, about three miles, and to run along CSX tracks between Bolling Air Force Base and Pennsylvania Avenue. But the city and CSX couldn't agree on a lease.

In 2005, officials proposed running the tracks along a stretch of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Good Hope Road SE to Minnesota Avenue SE but abandoned those efforts after community opposition. Residents said the roads were too narrow for streetcars.

In January 2006, the project was shortened to 1.3 miles, running on its current alignment from Bolling, on South Capitol Street, to the Anacostia Metro station, with stops at the Navy Annex and Barry Farm on Firth Sterling.

The last District streetcar stopped running in January 1962. But for almost a century, streetcars clattered along steel tracks dug into the broad boulevards of the District and its suburbs, in one of the most extensive trolley systems in the country.

In Washington, a congressional ban on overhead wires in the heart of the city poses a special problem.

Unlike the Anacostia demonstration, where cars would draw power from a pole that connects with overhead wires, a more extensive streetcar network would need to rely on newer technology, such as a self-propelled system powered by battery, Moneme said.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this article.