UPDATE: (1:50 p.m.) Mayor Vince Gray, as previously reported, named Terry Bellamy permanent DDOT director a few minutes ago. “We are the incubator of the world,” Bellamy said upon his introduction. “Everyone comes to D.C. to see what we are doing.” Bellamy also called the job a “once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Former DDOT director Gabe Klein called Bellamy the “right choice.” WTOP’s Adam Tuss reports that Klein told him that Bellamy was a calming figure in the agency. “I was the Michelle Rhee of transportation, and Terry (Bellamy) balanced me out,” Klein told Tuss.

ORIGINAL POST: Mayor Vince Gray is scheduled to finally announce his choice for the permanent director of the District’s Department of Transportation this afternoon, but it looks like we won’t have to wait that long for a name: NBC4’s Tom Sherwood, the Examiner’s Kytja Weir and WTOP’s Adam Tuss all report that Gray will appoint current interim director Terry Bellamy to the position.

Bellamy, who was named interim director shortly after Gray was inaugurated, began working at DDOT in March 2008 after eight years with Arlington County’s Transportation Department. While Gabe Klein was in charge of the agency during the Fenty administration, Bellamy served as deputy director of operations, in charge of “oversight over the Department’s most crucial administrations” and managing “daily operations of construction projects and street management and maintenance throughout the District.”

The news isn’t exactly shocking — despite hiring a headhunter and interviewing several candidates for the job, the safe money was always on the Mayor doing the same thing he did with the Nicholas Majett at the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Rob Mancini at the Office of the Chief Technology Officer and Kaya Henderson at D.C. Public Schools and simply choose the person he picked as interim director.