Report: Construction, Management Problems Plague the D.C. Streetcar

"The District failed to install underground heaters at key points along its beleaguered streetcar line, allowing snow and ice to freeze up critical switches that are supposed to guide the 35-ton vehicles from one piece of track to another," reports Michael Laris.

That information is one of the findings of a report by an outside experts organized by the American Public Transportation Association.

The lack of switch heaters, as their known, has "broad implications for the reliability of the 2.2-mile line running east of Union Station along H Street and Benning Road NE. During months of test runs last winter, the city’s red-and-gray streetcars were sometimes essentially left frozen in their tracks; workers had to dig out blockages by hand so the vehicles could pass."

The switch heater snafu is only one of the findings of the report. Also included in the damning conclusions of the report: " poor coordination among, and oversight of, contractors; shortcomings with the system’s design; and a variety of safety concerns."