Great Smoky Mountains Parkway
| Great Smoky Mountains Parkway | |
|---|---|
| Route information | |
| Maintained by TDOT & NPS/FHWA | |
| Length: | 23.4 mi (37.7 km) |
| Component highways: |
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| Major junctions | |
| South end: |
 US 441 in Gatlinburg
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| North end: |
 I-40 in Kodak
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| Highway system | |
The Great Smoky Mountains Parkway travels 14.5 miles (23.3 km) between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Sevierville, along U.S. route 441 and state route 448, in east Tennessee. It serves both, as the main thoroughfare for Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, and a 4.3-mile (6.9 km) spur of the Foothills Parkway.
The road is simply called "Parkway" in Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, where most of the commercial land development has occurred in those two cities. Both have numbered each traffic light sequentially to make it easier for non-locals to find their hotels and other tourist attractions. Sevierville has its traffic lights numbered in miles and tenths, according to the mileage from the national park boundary.
Between Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg, the parkway becomes part of the Foothills Parkway as its spur route, although that roadway has yet to be built in the area (the right of way for it already includes land for a small interchange adjacent to the southern end of the Pigeon Forge city limit). This 4.3-mile (6.9 km) segment, on a narrow strip of National Park Service (NPS) land, is a four-lane divided highway which runs along both banks of the northward-flowing Little Pigeon River. Where the river briefly diverts to the west and back east again, the southbound roadway on the west bank also curves around, while the northbound lanes go through a tunnel. The Gatlinburg visitor center is located just before entering the town from the north. The Gatlinburg Bypass, part of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, connects with the parkway to provide a direct access to the National Park. All of these parkways are operated as part of Great Smoky Mountains National Park (unlike other separate national parkways), with support for design and road construction (including repaving) from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) through the Public Lands Transportation Program (PLTP) as in other national parks.
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Wikipedia