Photo by WashingTonyDC.

With the installation of the streetcar tracks on H Street NE and Benning Road, D.C. began encouraging cyclists to “use caution” on the corridor. That’s because, thanks to the tracks, it’s now pretty simple to get a wheel stuck in the gaps, which usually does not end well. (A 2012 incident left this editor with a reduction of skin on her left leg and the common sense never to bike on H Street again.)

Keeping that in mind, it may surprise you to hear that H Street Main Street will give away free rides in pedicabs decorated like streetcars along the tracks this summer to celebrate the new (but really old) form of transportation and highlight changes along the corridor. The first event will take place Saturday, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the second on Saturday, August 23 during the same time period. Pedicabs will depart from Union Station and travel up to Maryland Avenue NE.

So when will that actual streetcar begin running? In a new blog entry, the District Department of Transportation lists the “launch [of] passenger service on DC Streetcar before the end of the year” as a priority.