The Washington Post is reporting that Arlington is going to pull the plug on planned Streetcars for Columbia Pike and Crystal City. You can read the story here.
This is bad news for Arlington, and could signal bad news for Maryland's purple line project. Why?
Two troubling signs:
1. Promises of State aid weren't enough to save the project. Arlington county officials had already secured 135 million from the state of Virginia. Usually, when transportation projects get killed it is because you can't get the state or feds on board. They were on board here. It still got killed. The purple line has a similar set of circumstances.
2. Opponents of local/state/federal spending on infrastructure are organized. The Arlington County Board elections a couple of weeks ago saw the ouster of a streetcar advocate and the election of someone ardently opposed to them. In the WAPO story, the Arlington County Board chair acknowledged that outcome when he announced the decision, saying, "We were caught flatfooted, we did not effectively make the case." In Maryland, Larry Hogan hasn't said much about the Purple Line, but his anti-tax rhetoric suggests he won't support it. And, as readers of this blog know, the purple line's opponents are organized and willing to sue to get their way.
The bigger question--what does all of this mean for redevelopment in the DMV's inner suburbs? Nothing good for people not adjacent to the city's already jammed metro system.
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