Via DDOT

Traveling between Anacostia and Capitol Hill or Navy Yard should be easier starting today with the opening of the newest span of the 11th Street Bridge. The bridge will carry local traffic across the Anacostia River beginning with two inbound lanes and one outbound lane along with a path for cyclists and pedestrians.

After today’s rush hour, the District Department of Transportation will shutter a ramp on 13th Street that connected local inbound traffic to the 11th Street span carrying the Interstate 695 freeway.

With the opening of the bridge today, DDOT’s $300 million bridge project is about half finished. The freeway bridges opened earlier this year and the local bridge, while open for traffic, is not scheduled to be completed until in fall. The full project is expected to be finished in summer 2013.

In the mean time, though, the new local bridge should ease some of the burden faced daily by drivers seeking to cross the Anacostia. Beside the closing of the 13th Street ramp, there are a few other changes coming for local traffic starting today, DDOT reports:

• Capitol Hill/Navy Yard area: pedestrians and bicyclists currently using the 11th & N Street intersection on-ramp will instead continue one block further south to access Anacostia via the new 11th & O Street intersection on-ramp to the Local 11th Street Bridge/Corridor. Pedestrians and bicyclists will continue along the new 11th Street Corridor and land at the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue and Good Hope Road.
• Historic Anacostia/NPS Anacostia Park area: pedestrians and bicyclists currently using the Good Hope Road/NPS Park ramp will access the new 11th Street Corridor at the intersection of MLK Jr. Avenue and Good Hope Road and travel across the river and land at the 11th and O Street intersection next to the Navy Yard.
• Protected Crossing: pedestrians crossing to either side of the Anacostia River will be protected from traffic by a concrete jersey barrier wall until the local bridge can be completed this fall.