Despite solid backing from developers, leaders of neighboring Fairfax County and Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), the plan to launch streetcars along Columbia Pike and in Crystal City became toxic in Arlington, where elected officials pride themselves on progressive urban planning as well as on building polite consensus.
The streetcars figured prominently in proposals to bring new housing and retail and office space to struggling neighborhoods. They typified the county’s historic embrace of mass transit and its strategic use of transportation projects to trigger development in trendy neighborhoods, including Clarendon and Ballston.
But a vocal contingent of Arlingtonians questioned the promised benefits of the project — whose price tag eventually reached $550 million — and wondered whether it was an example of county-funded excess.
