The February Hill Rag has
an article about the "complex challenges" of traffic management facing Near Southeast and Southwest as
development projects come online over the next few years--including, of course, the new
ballpark, which will draw 40,000 fans 80 times a year. The
DC Sports and Entertainment Commission is required to provide a Traffic Operations and Parking Plan by April 30; there will then be community meetings for discussion (lots of it, I imagine) of the plan, though DCSEC takes pains to note that the TOPP is just for game day-related traffic, and not the entire surrounding area's general traffic flow. Ward 6 council member Tommy Wells is working on a gathering of representatives of the usual suspects (agencies, DCSEC, business and property owners [including the Navy], and community members) to work toward coordinating plans and solutions addressing the flow of people in and out of Southeast and Southwest. Even before the arrival of thousands of baseball fans and other neighborhood newcomers (including the 7,000
DOT workers scheduled to arrive in Spring 2007), traffic along South Capitol Street is, shall we say, terrible, so coming up with a solution will be an interesting challenge.
If you're interested in traffic issues, you might also want to look at this
Transportation Impact Study (PDF, 3.6 MB; for a taste, here's the
introduction and conclusions) of the area bounded by
South Capitol, First, M, and N streets submitted by
Monument Realty as part of its Dec. 2006 Zoning Commission filings for the
55 M Street project (which I just got my paws on). While it primarily deals with Squares 700 and 701, section 5 of the study also has an
analysis of projected ballpark weekday evening traffic in 2008. For more background (from a government source), you can also go back and read the
2004 South Capitol Gateway Corridor and Anacostia Access Study prepared by DDOT.