I will admit that I have tended to focus on news west of 7th Street, SE, ignoring the small additional sliver of Near Southeast south of the freeway between 7th and the 11th Street Bridge. (Some would argue that the land east of the 11th Street Bridge, including Maritime Plaza, is also part of Near Southeast, but I'm putting my foot down and deeming that Hill East.) But I promise now to add those few blocks to their rightful place on this site (if not on the map at right, at least not yet!). So, with that, a few items:

Speaking of bridges and environmental impact statements, I've only now stumbled across both the South Capitol Street Bridge Study web site and SouthCapitolEIS.com,  two efforts that ran concurrently over the last six months as part of the project to replace the Frederick Douglass Bridge. (I've only been checking the DDOT Public Meetings page on a daily basis for weeks now, sure would have been nice if one of their announcements had ever mentioned these URLs!) Both sites have lots of links and information, and should be required bookmarks for anyone interested in the replacement (and most likely realignment) of the South Capitol Street Bridge. Materials from the summer meetings of these projects are available, as is a mammoth, crash-your-computer PDF showing two of the proposed alternate alignments. I believe these two stages are pretty much over, so I'll try to keep you posted on the next phases.

The DC Department of Transportation will hold a public meeting regarding Early Right of Way Acquisitions on the South Capitol Street Bridge Alignment Study Project, Tuesday, August 16, 2005, at 10 am, at the Reeves Municipal Center at 14th and U, NW. According to the press release, the "purpose of this meeting is to provide the landowners and other interested persons with an opportunity to receive information about the project, DDOT's Early Acquisition Program, and to submit written and verbal comments." The realignment of the South Capitol Street (Frederick Douglass) Bridge is part of the huge plans for the redesign and redevelopment of South Capitol Street, as detailed in both the New Vision for South Capitol Street (NCPC), and DDOT's South Capitol Gateway Corridor and Anacostia Access Study. (UPDATE: Bumped up as a reminder.)

The mammoth transportation bill that's making its way through Congress contains a few nuggets for Near Southeast--$123 million for the rehabilitation of the South Capitol Street Bridge, and $17.6 million for upgrading of the 11th Street Bridge and construction of new ramps for access to M Street, SE.

The National Capital Planning Commission has released its New Vision for South Capitol Street, a beautiful brochure giving more details on how they foresee the redevelopment of South Capitol Street into a grand boulevard, from a new Frederick Douglass Bridge northward to Virginia Avenue. As always, visions and realities are two very different things, but there is strong backing from the federal government (mainly in the persona of Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer), and now with the baseball stadium poised to be built along South Capitol, the interest in making this street into a showcase approach to the Capitol is considerably heightened. But don't look for any of it to happen next week, there's a 10- to 15-year timeline on it all....

Federal and local leaders have signed an agreement to pledge to rebuild the Frederick Douglass Bridge and to redevelop the South Capitol Street corridor as a grand gateway into the District from Prince George's County (more). Does it actually mean anything? Hope so!