But where no such fleet exists (the typical USA situation) the high capital cost, interference with buried utility plant, ongoing maintenance, and general antiquity of the whole external power concept favor on-board power over any external supply option.

This will probably wind up as hybridization of batteries charged off the grid at night and augmented during service hours by small, clean-tuned constant-speed diesels; by compressed natural gas gensets; or via hydrogen…either efficient fuel cells or less expensive but less efficient H2 internal combustion engines.

Risk of interference with buried utility infrastructure is a strong negative for any external power alternative.

The potential for subsequent retrofit with better batteries and cleaner future generations of prime movers favors onboard power alternatives.

All I’m saying is that things can change. Don’t underestimate what could be. It may take a while and it may never live up to its potential, but it could be a great street one day.

A couple of fictional characters from Edward P. Jones’s short story collection, “All Aunt Hagar’s Children,” talk about what makes H Street NE special.

In “Adam Robinson Acquires Grandparents and a Little Sister,”
“Where were all the oaks and maples and birches, even the odd pear, apple or peach tree, that had been there in the time when he did not yet know himself and the city seemed always as green as his granparents’ idea of Heaven?… The cab approached H Street, N.E. He could see box after box meant for trees existed now only to support litter. Between the parked cars, Noah could see that the city government people had thrown up the occasional young tree, like the one in front of his apartment building….They would not live out the year. ‘Root, little pig, or die,’ his father and grandfather liked to say….Noah forgave that street for being virtually treeless, for that had always been its way.”

And in “Root Worker,”
“All that week of being ten her father had promised her a Saturday of shopping and a movie at the Atlas theater and a half smoke from Mile Long as they went up and down the busy commercial H Street….She might have been able to look down toward H and see all the excitement of a Saturday on H Street. The happy children. The Atlas announcing in big letters on its marquee what extraordinary movie awaited a child…and candy without end might rot a girl’s teeth on any other day of the week, but not on a special Saturday.”

I hope that helps people as they think about the H Street streetcar and overhead wires.

For all Hill folks, I hope you read Edward P. Jones’s two collections of short stories! Great literature, set right outside your front door!

I think the “all wireless” option will never get out of the station. Constructive commentary on where to go wireless and where to accept wires is the next logical point of discussion on propulsion.

CHRS has drawn its line on the map: “the area south of Florida Avenue/Benning Road, west of the Anacostia River,” they write in their resolution, is the L’Enfant Plan area that is protected by the National Capital Planning Commission and on the National Register of Historic Places, AND there are other “areas outside the L’Enfant Plan that deserve protection from unsightly overhead wires used to power streetcars.”

That seems a little too broad for me. It depends on what the engineers say will work reliably and at a reasonable cost, but I’d be satisfied with protecting vistas along state-named streets and intersections with those streets, then take on a case-by-case basis the arguments for other stretches that should go wireless if possible.

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, where we have street cars, overhead wires, monumental views (ever seen Mt. Hood), and lotsa trees. I can tell you that the wires are NOT an issue. This hysteria here about the wires, especially to the point where it hampers actually getting the streetcars running, is mystifying.

I think that CHRS, which does very little in terms of advocacy on the future of H Street, is pretty out-of-line to be weighing in on the side of *slowing* positive developments on that street. 90% of the people on that board and those screaming about protecting the views, which are all up on H street don’t come up there anyway.

Essentially, people have to be a little flexible in the pursuit of the greater good. Mass hysteria about overhead wires and misleading statements about the feasibility/cost/preferability of underground systems is just more of the same tired baloney from people who forget that it takes adjusting to some change for big change to happen.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for protecting the unique features of the Hill, but when it comes at the price not doing things that move the Hill and particularly H Street forward, count me out.

I live near H Street as well. It’s an easy distinction to make.

H Street = No trees, mostly commercial including large retailers, strip malls, major transit way into and out of the city w/ exclusively stoplights

8th Street = Tree-lined, historic rowhouses (residential) with a few small, mostly local businesses, smaller street with many stop signs and only traffic signals at major intersections

There’s no comparison. IMO, a much closer comparison would be any of the “state streets” running through the hill and H-street.