Sign up for our free newsletter

Free D.C. news, delivered to your inbox daily.

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.