Commuter Cheer: Benning Road Gets Smoother

Seems like quite a while since I've been able to tell you about anything besides train wrecks and delays, but the District Department of Transportation has put out a report on good progress for long suffering drivers on Benning Road NE.

Four of the six lanes have been paved and now are open to traffic. Two in each direction are open between 16th Street NE and Oklahoma Avenue.

This means the paving was completed about eight weeks ahead of the Aug. 15 deadline set In April by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and Gabe Klein, director of the District Department of Transportation, when they went over to Benning in April and announced that crews would work double shifts to get the road reconstruction project back on track.

The rest of the Benning Road work, including the repaving of the two center lanes and installation of streetcar tracks, is still on schedule to be completed in December, DDOT said.

The final portion of the project to the west, at the starburst intersection where H Street, Benning Road, Bladensburg Road and Maryland Avenue come together, includes the construction of a plaza with a historical mural and other amenities for the neighborhood. That is scheduled to be completed in April 2010.