Photo by Aaron Hedquist.

For years, the oft–delayed project was associated with words like “boondoggle” and “calamitous.” As of Monday, though, the D.C. Streetcar marks one year of service on the H Street Corridor.

On February 27, 2016, the streetcar began transporting passengers on eight stops along its 2.2-mile line from Union Station to Oklahoma Ave., marking the return of streetcars to D.C. for the first time since 1962.

In its first year, the average daily ridership was 2,751, with 906,000 total passengers. January 2017 saw the biggest ridership numbers yet—nearly 93,000 for the month with a weekday average of 3,068 (the first time it exceeded 3,000 for a monthly average) and a weekend average of 2,822. WAMU notes that ridership is more than twice what the D.C. Department of Transportation projected. (January 2017 generally saw huge ridership numbers for D.C. area public transportation.)

None of those passengers pay for the service, which will continue to be free for at least the next four years. It costs the city $8.8 million annually to operate the streetcar, reports WAMU, after construction totaling more than $200 million over a decade.

“We think the system is already paying for itself — it’s provided a new transit option for people in this part of town; it has also spurred economic development along the H Street Corridor,” Terry Owens, DDOT spokesperson, told WTOP.

DDOT says that, since the launch, there’ve been 2.6 million square feet of new proposed development along the corridor with 770,000 square feet of development already under construction. It’s tough to say how much of that can be directly attributed to the streetcar, though.

The most popular stops are Union Station, 8th and H NE, and 13th and H NE. The busiest time is between 5 – 7 p.m.

The average headway between the six cars is about 12 minutes as of last month, a three minute improvement over the 15-minute wait time when the service first opened. The streetcar began offering Sunday service this fall.

Despite some small-scale crashes, the service has largely avoided controversy and negative press since it opened.

The next step is an expansion into Ward 7 along Benning Road.

The streetcar plans to celebrate the anniversary by jamming out to its very own jingle, which ate nearly $6,000 out of the $221,000 promotional budget, according to Washington City Paper.

And if you’re still confused about how, exactly, to ride the streetcar and you’re too embarrassed to ask, DDOT made an instructional video for that: