And it was just beginning to look like the hopes and dreams of District bloggers and commenters everywhere were going to come true. Yesterday, the Examiner reported that the D.C. Taxicab Commission would release a report in the next few weeks expected to support ditching D.C.’s zone system in favor of regular old meters. The six-month study was conducted by George Washington University and pulls data from over 30,000 cab rides, comparing metered and…

In a long-awaited decision that may boost the fortunes of the troubled new baseball stadium for the Washington Nationals in Southeast, the Supreme Court today ruled that local governments may expropriate homes and businesses to accommodate private development. Stemming from a case in which the local government of the city of New London, Conn., exercised their power of eminent domain over an economically-depressed area and replaced homes with a riverfront hotel and office buildings aimed…

The Washington Nationals may have just won their first game, but don’t expect any of that home-team spirit to carry over into the on-going debate over the new stadium the Nationals are to occupy starting in 2008. The Post is reporting today that D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi came under fire this week for allegedly under-estimating how much the District would pay to acquire the land in Southeast where the stadium is to be built. Gandhi…

If you have any interest in the future of U Street and Shaw as a whole, the District’s Office of Planning and Economic Development and the Office of Planning is hosting a forum tonight on the future of planning in the neighborhoods, especially along the U Street and Seventh Street corridors in Northwest. The session will address “the redevelopment of key publicly-owned buildings and land, including the Howard Theatre and Grimke School on Vermont Avenue,…