Image courtesy DDOT.

While the region has been focused on the drama regarding the Metro station at Dulles International Airport and where it will be built, it’s important to remember that the District is fighting a similar battle over how to connect its H Street streetcar line to Union Station. Lydia DePillis reports that issue has gotten a little less murky now, as the option to run the streetcar tracks under train tracks and connect it directly to Union Station has been killed.

The benefits of the now-off-the-table proposal are obvious: having people be able to walk out the doors of Union Station and leap directly onto a streetcar could provide a multitude of short-term and long-term benefits to the H Street corridor. (It would also help to facilitate multi-modal transit planning.) But now, it is likely that the streetcar tracks will run over the the Hopscotch bridge and onto the Station’s parking deck (see the image above). This option will actually cost more, despite the fact that it is slightly less convenient.

So who’s to blame? Well, Amtrak, of course, who controls the property, who delayed on a decision, limiting the District’s ability to come up with viable alternatives. But there’s also blame to be placed at the feet of the Gray administration, DePillis writes:

Part of the problem may have been uncertainty from Amtrak about just how much incoming mayor Vince Gray was committed to streetcars, after his aborted attempt to cut funding for the program during the previous budget season. In February, during the transition, Amtrak’s vice president for government affairs Joe McHugh wrote to Gray’s chief of staff Gerri Mason Hall … He didn’t receive a response.

Well, to be fair, Hall was pretty busy during that time.