Former CAG president
Ray Kukulski
and transportation
specialist Bill Gallagher
have compiled a history
of our city’s public transit
system, including the
major role played by
Georgetown. Their
account, "Washington on
the Move: The Architecture of Transportation
in the Capital Region," was
presented at the University of Maryland
School of Architecture. They
explain how Washington, hub of
domestic and international politics,
has encountered innovations and difficulties
in keeping aesthetically pleasing
qualities while also maintaining
functionality.
In 1870 the population of Washington
was 132,000 yet the city still
lacked proper sanitation and residents
continued to travel on dirt roads. Congress
decided to take action and modernize
the city. The need to connect
Georgetown and downtown became
apparent as people began to live farther
from where they worked. The
first attempt at a systemized public
transit system was a series of twohorse
stage coaches that followed the
same routes between Georgetown and
downtown. The system soon evolved
into Omnibuses—horse-drawn wagons—
and later horse-drawn streetcars.
Each different mode of transportation
followed similar
routes along the
streets of the city
and by 1900 there
were twelve horsedrawn
streetcar
companies charted
in the District of
Columbia.
As the rest of the world evolved
past the horse-drawn stage of transportation
and were able to avoid the
serious sanitation problems that
accompany large animals travelling
city streets, Washington remained
concerned that the overhead poles
used as the main source of power
would be aesthetically displeasing.
Washingtonians felt that DC needed
to remain a pristine place that characterized
the American spirit. There
was a huge push to move the entire
power supply underground but Congress
deemed the project too difficult
and expensive to accomplish.
Finally, by the early 1920s, a conduit
electrical system, based on the system
used in Budapest, was set up to
power streetcars throughout the city.
The rails were installed so they were
flush with the cobblestone streets.
Georgetown, a nexus of the streetcar
system, has the only visual remnants
of the electrical streetcar system in the
country, the depressed rails on O and
P Streets.
Ultimately Washington boasted
the most environmentally friendly
and aesthetically pleasing transit system
of major cities that used the new
technology. The electric streetcars
enabled the city to grow beyond the
original borders.
The final stage of the transportation
saga is what we use today: gasoline
engines in taxicabs and buses. Washington
was one of the last cities to reap
the benefits of the newest technologies,
but it seems that Washington learns
from the mistakes of other cities and
eventually implements the best system
possible. The full article, including historical
photos, can be viewed by clicking here. It
includes many interesting details,
including more Georgetown-specific
information.
- Elizabeth Maloy
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