Photo by Andrew Bossi

With their expected debut a little more than a year, the District’s new streetcars are in the middle of their testing phase. D.C. already has three trolleys in its possession, with two more on the way from a manufacturer in Portland, Ore. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t still obstacles that could knock the forthcoming transit line off the rails.

The latest roadblock: Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8), who tells the Post today that the streetcar project should be slowed down and maybe rethought entirely. Put simply, he’s unsure if it’s even needed at all to relieve the burden on the District’s existing transit options. The Post’s Tim Craig reports:

In an interview, Barry said he wants to slow up the project because he’s not convinced the streetcar line is needed because the District has an “excellent METRO system” and reliable bus service along the H Street corridor.

“It’s about priorities in spending and how much capital money we are spending on streetcars that benefit a small number of people,” Barry said. “We are already subsidizing Metro and also subsidizing the Circulator…People already have good bus service.”

To that end, Barry is filing a disapproval resolution over a $50 million contract Mayor Vince Gray announced last week with Dean-Facchina LLC to build the trolley turnarounds, overhead power lines and car barn. The resolution could set back the contract’s approval process by 45 days.

But Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), who chairs the D.C. Council committee that oversees the District Department of Transportation and has said that she’s already frustrated by DDOT’s slow pace on the streetcar construction, tells the Post that Barry’s move is most unwelcome.

“This is the first time I have heard anything about him focusing on things not being well thought in terms of this contract,” Cheh tells the Post.

Barry, however, says the whole streetcar project might be a $1.5 billion mistake. “It doesn’t seem like a well-though-out plan,” he says. Of course, the Post also notes that the one of the vice presidents of Dean-Facchina, the company that hopes to complete the construction of the H Street/Benning Road NE line, is none other than Barry’s Council rival, David Catania (I-At Large).

But you know who was once a big booster of building a streetcar line through Northeast D.C.? Marion Barry! In 2010, when Barry first started grousing about the current project, Greater Greater Washington dredged up a 1997 plan for several transportation projects in River East, including a streetcar line along H Street. The plan was signed off by the office of then-Mayor Marion Barry.