At the end of Thursday's council roundtable on
ballpark traffic operations and parking issues, a representative of the office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development told the council members that there will be a community meeting to provide stadium-related information to residents on March 12, to be held at the
ballpark. An announcement flyer should be going out soon, they said.
Other items from the later portion of the meeting, which I've now finished watching (and which you can now watch
via on-demand video):
* There are indeed "hundreds" of spaces in the parking lots surrounding the ballpark that were not purchased by season ticket holders, and the Nationals are looking at making those available for gameday purchase, but probably only via the Internet, and only in lots farther away from the ballpark. This is to avoid congestion in the area near the stadium, and also to prevent fans from driving to the area without a parking space already in hand.
* It appears that monthly parking contracts will be offered in the garages on the north end of the ballpark footprint, though that is still being worked out. (The city would receive 2/3 of the revenue from those contracts.)
* Tommy Wells asked a number of questions about vending carts around the ballpark, interested not so much in the economics but more about "more eyes on the streets", especially along New Jersey Avenue for fans walking to and from the stadium from the Capitol South subway station. There are apparently
new regulations that Jim Graham said will most likely will pass at the March 4 council meeting that would require site-specific permits for street vendors and that would create "development zones", "essentially specific geographic areas with a uniform design standard that would be established through a partnership of DCRA, neighborhoods and their business improvement districts" (
quoting myself quoting a
February WBJ article--
read the bill for more information). So it sounds like any planning for vending in the ballpark area is going to come down to the wire.
And, if you haven't looked at the
Ballpark Traffic Management slides from the hearing that I posted yesterday, please do. There really is a
wealth of information on traffic flow, where traffic officers will be posted, signal timing, routes to parking lots, and much more. It answers a lot of questions that fans and residents may have, but only if you look at it.
UPDATE, 3/5: Okay, so maybe "at the ballpark" was spoken by city officials in a literary sense, the same way that the Navy Yard Metro station is "at the ballpark". (Ahem.) The meeting is going to be held on March 12 from 6 to 8:30 pm on the 10th floor of
20 M Street, SE.