Photo by DC Streetcar.

Sticking to his guns about not sticking to an opening date, the director of the District Department of Transportation wouldn’t commit to the streetcar carrying passengers by the end of the year in an interview with WAMU.

Mayor Muriel Bowser made headlines last month when she said would ride the long-delayed boondoggle by the end of the year. But DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo is taking a more conservative tack.

“Our working plan is to try to get the system open this year, but I cannot guarantee that,” Dormsjo told the outlet. “We are getting closer and I am feeling pretty good about where we are, but I can’t say with precision that we are going to open by a date specific.”

Dormsjo and his new streetcar program chief, Derek Jones, said that the holdup has to do with a number of factors, including retesting, an ongoing safety certification process, and an already-broken car.

From WAMU:

“This is the nation’s capital. It’s an exciting system. By the time I get done with it, we are going to have a system that people will look to, and come to see how to do it properly,” [Jones said.]

Anyone who has followed the progress—if that is the correct word—of the D.C. streetcar project over the past half-decade may find Jones’ optimism unintentionally humorous. Time and again public officials, most notably former Mayor Vincent Gray, predicted streetcars would be running in 2013 and then in 2014.

On the upside, it does make for a very good lazy Halloween costume.