Martin DiCaro

Metro is considering a long-range plan to relieve congestion on its crowded rush hour trains, but the transit agency's top official says it's at least a couple decades away from being realized.

As the Washington region’s population and employment grow, traffic congestion will worsen -- but the percentage of all daily trips taken using transit will remain at seven percent through 2040.

WAMU - Washington —

Twenty-one years after plans were first devised -- and seven years after D.C.'s bike master plan called for its completion -- a planned eight mile bicycling and walking trail that may eventually connect Union Station and Silver Spring is still years away from being finished.

WAMU - Washington —

The District’s first streetcar in a half-century was towed down its tracks on H Street NE at four miles per hour Monday, the first in what will be months of safety tests before passengers can finally hop aboard next year.

The first streetcar to glide down tracks in Washington in half a century will make its first appearance Friday, as the District Department of Transportation intends to transfer one of its new streetcars from its Anacostia test track to the H Street/Benning Road NE corridor.

Following word that the already-delayed Silver Line would need additional testing before it could be turned over to D.C.'s transit authority for passenger service, Virginia Senator Mark Warner whipped off a letter complaining that delays hurt commuters -- and cost millions in lost fare box revenue.

WAMU - Washington —

The federal gasoline tax, last raised in 1993 to 18 cents per gallon, would increase five cents per year over three years and have future increases tied to inflation, under legislation proposed Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR). With the Highway Trust Fund set to go broke in ten months, the congressman called on leaders of both parties and the Obama administration to raise the tax to replenish the pot of money that pays for rail and road improvements.

The deadly derailment of a Metro-North commuter train in New York Sunday may be adding a sense of urgency to the efforts of freight and passengers railroads to adopt technology that could prevent similar accidents.

WAMU - Washington —

As Washington becomes the first city in the U.S. to deploy cameras to catch drivers who run stop signs and crosswalks, block the box, and drive oversized or overweight commercial vehicles in residential neighborhoods, safety researchers are launching a study to measure the new cameras' effectiveness.

Metro carries half of all people heading downtown on 16th Street, but the already-crowded buses must compete with cars. Now, D.C. is looking at ways to speed buses along -- including ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. —

The Silver Spring Transit Center, years behind schedule and about $15 million over budget, finally may be ready to open to the public next year after additional repair work, Montgomery County, Md. officials announced on Tuesday.

The head of D.C.'s transit agency is apologizing to Red Line riders for the delays this week which were unusually bad -- even by the standards of the oft-beleaguered Metro line.

A meeting of the D.C. Taxicab Commission ended in an uproar on Wednesday, as nearly 300 cab drivers organized by the Teamsters union erupted in anger when the commission’s chairman attempted to read aloud a letter from an unhappy cab customer.

District officials want to prevent cars from making illegal U-turns through the Pennsylvania Avenue bike lane. But critics say the spacing of zebras -- so-called plastic barriers -- isn't doing the trick.

Talk about transit-oriented development: for the first time in seven years, Washington's transit authority is soliciting developers for land it owns at five separate Metro stations.

D.C.'s first streetcar line in 50 years may be ready for passengers service by spring or early summer of next year, but an exact date remains elusive.

Cabbies rallied outside D.C.'s city hall Tuesday, demanding a meeting with Mayor Vincent Gray as they fight for more representation on the city's Taxicab Commission.

D.C.'s new Metro cars are "a complete departure" from what transit riders have seen for the last four decades, according to the agency's chief.

And then there were five: of the eight payment service providers D.C. approved to supply credit card systems to city taxis, three have faced significant problems. Now, the lawsuits are beginning.

WAMU - Washington —

D.C. cabbies -- frustrated with a spate of city mandates requiring drivers to modernize their vehicles -- have voted to unionize.