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Big news, DC! Streetcar to start passenger service next Saturday! Visit https://t.co/2HVljBFU1H for more info. pic.twitter.com/oGmI3QE3D9
— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) February 18, 2016
The H Street streetcar will finally start carrying passengers next Saturday. Still, it wouldn’t be the streetcar without some inexplicable decisions.
Consider the hashtag the typically hashtag-crazed Muriel Bowser administration is using to hype the streetcar launch: “#choochoo7.”
Does “seven” represent the number of cars the streetcar will hit on its inaugural run? The number of cyclists who will get their tires trapped in its tracks?
Is it a nod to the ubiquitous Simpsons gag? And what kind of streetcar makes a “choo, choo” noise anyway?
It turns out that “choochoo7” is an allusion to the streetcar launch date, 2/27. So it’s like “two,” but instead of “two,” it’s “choo.”
I asked the District Department of Transportation whether that’s right.
“You got it,” DDOT spokesman Terry Owens wrote in an email.
Still, I don’t really get it.
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