Look ma, no cones! Photo by philliefan99.

Yesterday was a bit of a downer for those expecting big things along H Street NE, but today is a brighter day: a majority of heavy construction on the H Street Great Streets project is now finished. It’s a big deal for both residents and businesses — after all, this is the same stretch of road where the District Department of Transportation felt the need to install signage assuring motorists that “H Street Businesses Are All Open For Business During Construction”.

Mayor Vince Gray, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells and DDOT Director Terry Bellamy held a press conference this morning to celebrate the reaching of the milestone — parking lanes are back, sidewalks and roadway have been reconstructed and new streetlights have been fully installed. Here’s hoping that the 55 new businesses that opened along the corridor over the past two years start to reap some of the rewards, after what was an admittedly challenging period. (A few protesters showed up at today’s event to show their displeasure with the amount of time the project took.)

Of course, one of the biggest parts of the project was the installation of tracks and station platforms for the future streetcar — which won’t start running for at least a couple of years. Gray didn’t appear to get that memo, though.

“We need to accelerate things with this streetcar, get this line going,” Gray told the crowd. (Uh, you might want to have a chat with your transportation people, Mr. Mayor.)

But let’s not end on a negative note! Word came down this morning that the Giant supermarket planned at 3rd and H Streets NE will break ground next month. That annoying construction over and a new grocery getting off the ground: in total, not a bad day for the H Street denizen.