Photo by LeRoy Armstead.

Today is the streetcar’s one year fine-versary.

The city began issuing the $100 tickets for vehicles that are double parked, outside the white parking line or otherwise blocking the tracks during a time when it looked like the project might open within the foreseeable future.

Facing a litany of work that still remains to be completed, allegations of union-busting, and an increasingly disillusioned city, that is no longer the case. City officials in Mayor Muriel Bowser’s administration have repeatedly refused to give a date for the beleaguered project’s opening. District Department of Transportation director Leif Dormsjo told WAMU earlier this month that they are still “months” away from passenger service.

In the meantime, the streetcars have been in a simulated-service phase (aside from a brief period when they were pulled off the tracks to repair the rails), running up and down H Street and Benning Road sans passengers. That means that cars can’t be in their way.

And so, after a warning period, the District’s Department of Public Works began issuing tickets on July 14, 2014. They’ve since written 85 parking tickets for streetcar platform violations and 979 parking tickets for streetcar guideway violations, according to a DPW spokeswoman. In total, that amounts to $106,400 in fines.