WASHINGTON — Metro said it has plans this spring to renovate three aging bus loop facilities in Northwest D.C.
The facilities on Calvert Street, Colorado Avenue and Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase will be getting new doors, windows and restrooms. Lighting will be replaced and the facilities will get new security systems.
The bus loop facilities have some history to them. All three were inherited by Metro in the 1960s from Capital Transit — the company that ran streetcars in D.C. The city’s first streetcars rolled out in 1862, until Capital Transit halted operations in 1962.
Other infrastructure remaining from Washington’s streetcar days are Car Barn buildings in Georgetown, used as office space by Georgetown University, and the East Capitol Street Car Barn on Capitol Hill, converted to residences.
Only Metro employees have access to the bus loop facilities, but some members of the public have an eye on the facility in the 57-hundred block of Connecticut Avenue. The Advisory Neighborhood Commission representing Chevy Chase has raised the question whether the facility could also be used for public purposes, like a farmers market.
