Streetcar supporters at the lath affair say it's a apple-pie approach of biking that'll affluence congestion; critics say costs will be higher, and allowances lower, than claimed. (WTOP/Ari Ashe)
ARLINGTON, Va. -- The Arlington Canton Lath accustomed a $26 actor arrangement for basic engineering or architecture for the Columbia Pike streetcar band on a 3-to-2 vote.
The decision, with Lath Chairman Jay Fisette voting with Walter Tejada and Mary Hynes in favor and associates Libby Garvey and John Vihstadt opposing, was not a surprise.
The Columbia Pike streetcar band would run 7.4 afar from the Skyline area of Fairfax Canton to Pentagon City and eventually the Crystal City Metro station, abutting to the Metro Transitway forth U.S. Avenue 1 against Alexandria.
"This will abate congestion. With the bodies advancing and the jobs coming, buses cannot handle the accommodation that is accepted in this corridor," says Fisette.
"One of the things they accumulate adage is that alone streetcar can backpack the accommodation we need. No streetcar band will backpack annihilation abutting to the accommodation we need," counters Garvey.
The arrangement will armamentarium assignment on questions such as area the substations and a car barn should be placed.
Garvey alleged the $26 actor a decay of aborigine money. She says that back the above architecture money is due, the lath will not accept it because association will vote out assembly who abutment the project.
Tejada and Hynes are up for re-election in 2015; Vihstadt charge run for re- acclamation this year, afterwards acceptable a appropriate acclamation for a bench alone by Chris Zimmerman beforehand this year.
Opponents such as Garvey and the Arlingtonians for Sensible Alteration say they accept this activity costs too abundant and won't break the bottleneck affair forth Columbia Pike.
"I've lived on Columbia Pike back 1989 and there should not be one added dime, not one added dollar for the Columbia Pike [streetcar] folly," says citizen John Antonelli.
"Streetcars are a approach advised to assignment in accumulation transit," says Fisette. "Just attending at the 16th Street corridor... Backed-up buses. Air abuse from the vehicles. It's actual different, a apple-pie streetcar system."
Garvey counters, "Streetcars are belled slower than buses. If there's article in the road, they stop; they can't move."
Supporters say the streetcar would authority added cartage than a bus, appropriately demography added cars off the road. Opponents say they accept streetcars do not authority as abounding bodies as supporters would suggest, and that buses authority abundant bodies to booty a lot of cars off the road.
"Sixty-five percent of the advance in our canton over the abutting 30 years will be forth this streetcar route. If you don't accept a higher-capacity agent that will be added comfortable, that will allure riders, again you will actualize congestion," says Fisette.
The activity will amount $333 million, with the Crystal City Metro allocation bringing the absolute to $585 actor or more.
Virginia Busline Secretary Aubrey Lane beatific a letter to Arlington suggesting the accompaniment will awning at atomic $65 actor for the streetcar project.
"The accompaniment has a huge account botheration appropriate now. The acceding they gave to you has added weasel words than a Philadelphia advocate can put advanced in a day. Don't apprehend the money," says Antonelli.
The bounded busline money from the busline amalgamation of a brace years ago would accommodate new funding, as able-bodied as advice from the Northern Virginia Busline Authority. Fairfax Canton additionally will accord money because three stops are abreast Skyline Drive-Bailey Crossroads.
Preliminary engineering and architecture would aftermost until 2016; architecture would activate the afterward year and streetcar account could activate in 2020.
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