In 2003, Mayor Anthony A. Williams unveiled a draft Strategic Development Plan which proposed redeveloping and revitalizing six blighted areas of the city, including H Street NE and Benning Road.

[10] On January 20, 2006, the District of Columbia Department of Transportation announced that it would build a $13 million streetcar line on H Street NE, from Union Station to Benning Road and the Minnesota Avenue Metro station as part of its Great Streets initiative,[11][12] on much of the same route established by the Columbia Railway Company in 1870.

[13] Construction was originally planned to begin in the spring of 2007 (to coincide with extensive improvements to parking and lighting and the beautification of H Street NE) and end in 2009.

[16] In April 2010, DDOT officials announced that they intended to build a $74 million, two-mile (3.2 km) extension of the H Street line that would link with the Benning Road Metro station.

[23] The shuttle has also had eggs thrown at it, been shot at with BB guns, and youth have attempted to slash its tires while it made stops.

[23] Although it was intended to be a temporary measure to bring customers into the retail corridor while streetcar construction occurred, D.C. officials said they would fund the shuttle only through the end of 2010.

[23] Local preservationist groups such as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City as well as regional planning bodies like the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) have opposed the current design of the streetcar system, which relies on overhead electrical wires and a pantograph to conduct power to the streetcar motor.

[24] Opponents of the design cite an 1889 federal law banning such systems in Georgetown and the historic center city (defined by the Florida Avenue NE and NW south to the Potomac and Anacostia rivers).

[24] But District of Columbia officials say the current overhead lines are not visually obtrusive, and that conduit collection systems are costly and break down easily in cities with wet climates.

[24] On May 31, 2010, 12 of the council's 13 members co-sponsored a bill to exempt the H Street Line from the 1888 and 1889 laws that banned overhead electrification in the city's historic core.

[25] The legislation required that the mayor's office develop a citywide plan by 2014 to determine where additional overhead electrification could be permitted.

[30] Fenty also released the results of a study commissioned by the Downtown DC Business Improvement District (BID) and researched by the Brookings Institution, Robert Charles Lesser & Co. research firm, and Reconnecting America (a non-profit public transit advocacy group) which found that the DC Streetcar system could increase the value of businesses along the H Street Line by $1.1 billion over 20 years.

[31] The Washington Post reported that the budget battle may have been sparked by Council Chair Vincent C. Gray, who was likely to challenge Fenty for the Democratic nomination for mayor in September 2010.

[32] The following day, after hundreds of angry phone calls from residents, the Council restored the funds by agreeing to borrow the money.

[33] City planners said they continued to look at tapping into a $180 million fund designed to service Metro's debt, enacting BID or zoning taxes in areas affected by the streetcar system, or creating public-private partnerships that would tap into private money for construction in exchange for tax breaks or concessions by the city.

The rising cost of the project became an issue in the reelection bid of D.C. City Council member Tommy Wells, whose ward encompasses H Street.

[37] However, Amtrak declined to allow DDOT permission to use this space, as the railroad intended to access it for high-speed rail in the future.

[37] In January 2012, the D.C. Office of Planning released a report which asserted that the streetcar system had the potential to create 7,700 new jobs and added as much as $8 billion in new development over a 10-year period.

[39] The study also said that 4,000 to 12,000 households would move back into the District of Columbia from the suburbs,[39] and the number of people living on or near a streetcar line would triple.

[38] The report "conservatively" projected that up to $291 million in annual tax revenues would be generated by the fully completed streetcar system.

[39] Chris Leinberger of the Brookings Institution told The Washington Post that the streetcar system had the potential to finally move development out of the northwest quadrant of the city into the underdeveloped northeast and southeast.

[43] On December 21, 2011, Inekon Group filed a protest of the award with the D.C. Contract Appeals Board, claiming that cost/price trade-off analysis used by the city was inappropriate.

[45] At about the same time, DDOT announced a plan to build a $13 million, 14,000-square-foot (1,300 m2) trolley car barn, operations base, and maintenance facility on the grounds of Spingarn High School (which is near the eastern terminus of the line).

[46] In March 2012, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray proposed a six-year, $237 million capital expenditure budget that would continue to expand the DC Streetcar system.

Mayor Gray opened a city office in Shanghai to promote Chinese trade with and investment in the District of Columbia.

He argued a private company would seek to raise fares, reduce the number of routes built, and provide low-quality service to gain the highest profit.

[55] Wells also expressed his belief no private company would want to serve Ward 8, where the city's poorest but most mass transit-dependent population lives.

On October 8, 2012, DDOT director Terry Bellamy told the D.C. Council that the civic association's actions would push the opening of the H Street line into early 2014, even if landmark status was not awarded to the high school.

[58] With a decision on the fare structure still months off, Council Member Marion Barry threatened to cancel all funding for all planned DC Streetcar lines.

[62] On July 9, 2015, in a Washington Post article detailing problems with the heaters for the rails, Dormsjo indicated it would be "months" before the trolley line opened.