Late tonight,
DDOT will be opening the new southbound DC 295 flyover bridge, which is the first major phase of completed work on the
11th Street Bridges project. This will shift the flow of southbound traffic so that vehicles merging into 295 from the outbound 11th Street Bridge will be funneled into the left side of the freeway traffic, allowing thru 295 traffic to much more easily access the Howard Road exit without having to weave through the 11th Street Bridge merge flow.

Since this is on the east side of the Anacostia, it's not something I'd normally be writing much about, except that I got to visit the flyover bridge with camera in hand, hours before its opening, as part of a wide-ranging tour of the entire 11th Street Bridges project that DDOT was generous enough to arrange for me. In order to stay ahead of the news cycle, I've posted a
quick gallery of images of the new flyover bridge,
But of course these are not the only photos I took, and so early next week look for another batch of images that I'll be posting of the work on the bridges themselves and the new approaches that are being put in place. Work began on the
project in late 2009, and DDOT expects that the new inbound and outbound freeway bridges will be open by the end of this year. The new 11th Street Local bridge should open in the second half of next year, with the various new connector ramps being completed soon after. (There is
one shot of the new bridges included in this batch that should whet your appetite.)
I'll hold off on the
other big news of the project until then as well.