* The Examiner has a story about the Southeastern Bus Garage site and that the Nationals and Metro are in talks to provide 350 gameday parking spaces at the garage (plus three nearby WMATA-owned parking lots, though that's not specified in the article). The only real news in the article is that a judge is expected to rule this week on Monument Realty's lawsuit over the sale of the garage site to Akridge. For more background, read all my posts on the bus garage saga.

* Yesterday's scheduled council hearing on Monument's request to close the alley on Square 700 just north of the closed BP Amoco station was cancelled. No new session has been posted on the calendar.

* And the agenda for Thursday's WMATA Planning, Development and Real Estate Committee does not include anything on the joint development of the chiller plant site at Half and L, as had been anticipated back in January. Maybe next month?

* If you think you're excited about the local food vendors at the ballpark announced yesterday, you should read Marc Fisher.

* UPDATE: I've gotten word that the long article in the March Washingtonian on the ballpark is now online. The other related article, about residential developments planned around the stadium, won't be posted for a couple of weeks. So you'll just have to go buy it, I guess. And perhaps you too can then be like the poor soul at Safeway on Sunday reading that article, who got accosted by a pesky blogger in line in front of him pointing to a name on the page, saying, "That's me." Thankfully he didn't call security.

(And I've been under the weather the past few days, hence the somewhat brief updates.)

I'm also hearing that this is the week that the traffic and parking plans for Opening Day are going to be released, so watch this space for the latest on that.

UPDATE: Looks like one of Channel 9's staffers got a ballpark tour on Friday--he's posted a few pictures.

Stadium parking aficianados should note that the closure of the bus garage--in addition to lessening the chance for "encounters" between buses and pedestrians--will open up two existing lots in the "Red Zone" just north of the ballpark, as well as space within the garage itself and just to its south. Also, WMATA has been using a surface parking lot at Buzzards Point that would be vacated with this move. There's no word at this point on when exactly the garage will be vacated, and if the space will be used for parking this season.

When the original case (07-08) establishing the ability to build temporary lots on a number of blocks in Near Southeast was passed, parking lots did not automatically appear on every block covered in the amendment. However, ANC 6D and residents of Southwest are apparently viewing this new amendment as the city going back on a promise to not build any parking lots in Southwest. Here is the ANC 6D resolution.

I've been at meetings over the past few months where city and team officials have said that there would be no ballpark parking offered in Buzzards Point this season because of the lack of sidewalks, streetlamps, and other improvements; the Office of Planning report for Case 07-08A says: "The Nationals have advised OP that, to date, no agreements with owners of individual lots have been reached so it is not likely that any of the temporary parking will be located on these sites prior to opening day in 2008[.]" I'm checking with the Nationals to see if this has changed. But certainly Buzzards Point would be still be viewed as a prime location for additional surface parking, if it's needed.

It's anticipated that the need for temporary surface lots will lessen as new buildings go up near the ballpark; in the next two years or so, underground garages that could potentially offer additional stadium parking will open at Monument Half Street, 100 M, 1015 Half, Onyx, 70/100 I, Velocity, and 909 New Jersey.

* WMATA is proposing to expand the weeknight and weekend service of the N22 bus that currently shuttles between Union Station (and its Red Line Metro stop) and the Navy Yard station at New Jersey and M via Eastern Market (and its Orange/Blue Line stop) and the Washington Navy Yard. The buses would run every 10 minutes, and on nights and weekends the route would eliminate the loop to 12th and M streets, SE (see the map on page 2 of the current timetable), in order "to provide a shorter and faster route to the ballpark." The District of Columbia is apparently going to pay $432,000 to cover the cost of the additional service from March through August. If approved, the expanded service would begin in March. The agenda documentation doesn't say what times the expanded service would end on weeknights or operate on weekends. Read the agenda packet for more.

* The city is also apparently offering to cover the costs of relocating the buses out of the Southeastern Bus Garage at Half and M (one block north of the ballpark), as part of a $1.39 million monetary shuffling that WMATA is proposing to undertake because the $69.25 million sale of the site to Akridge still has not been finalized. DC would cover the relocation costs until the sale is completed, and presumably by doing this the buses can get out of the garage by March 30. Read the agenda packet for more details. The city is extremely interested in getting the buses out of the way, not only because trying to operate that garage with hordes of pedestrians on their way to and from games would be a disaster waiting to happen, but also because the Nats might be able to squeeze a couple hundred more $35 Red Zone parking spaces out of the garage land and the two lots adjoining it across Van Street (one to the north and one to the south of the Public Storage building).

These are just preliminary votes; if approved on the 14th, they would then go in front of the full WMATA board for final approval on March 28.

But the main issue of the evening was that CHT residents are not as of now eligible for Residential Parking Permit stickers for their cars, which will leave them with no free on-street parking when the streets around their building are metered. (The plan is that everyone will have to pay to park on commercial streets, such as New Jersey, but on streets zoned residential, RPP-stickered cars will be able to park free but non-RPP cars will have to pay.) At first Tommy said that his impression was that trying to get RPP stickers for residents of a multi-unit building was not going to happen, but Rybeck said that it should be doable. By the end of the evening, it did appear that Rybeck and Bhatt had a bit more of an understanding as to the Catch-22 that CHT parkers could find themselves caught in if the Performance Parking plan is rolled in as currently envisioned. (The building does have an underground parking garage, but there is a long-simmering battle about garage parking between some residents and the building's owner that I'm way too chicken to try to characterize here, and so many residents park on the surrounding streets.)