Mayor Gray was joined by D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown and three Councilmembers while rolling out the new Circulator route.

For the first time since it launched six years ago, the D.C. Circulator will be crossing the Anacostia River and serving communities in wards 7 and 8.

During an event at the Good Hope Marketplace Shopping Center along Alabama Avenue SE this morning, Mayor Vince Gray, D.C. Department of Transportation Director Terry Bellamy, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown and three councilmembers inaugurated the new Circulator route, which will connect the Potomac Avenue Metro station, Barracks Row, Skyland and Anacostia.

The route, which Brown had pushed for since early 2010, was developed over the course of four public meetings. The six buses that will serve the route at ten-minute intervals were taken from the Convention Center-SW Waterfront route, which was discontinued due to low ridership earlier this year.

The Circulator will run from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. through March 31, and until 9 p.m. from April 1 to September 30, 2012. Bellamy said that the operating hours were meant to match those of the Union Station-Navy Yard route, but depending on ridership the hours could be extended. (Various routes operate until midnight.)

Some 500,000 people use the Circulator’s four other routes each month.