Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway
| Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway | |
|---|---|
Map of the District of Columbia with Rock Creek Parkway highlighted in red
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| Route information | |
| Maintained by NPS | |
| Length: | 2.90 mi (4.67 km) |
| Existed: | 1944 – present |
| Restrictions: | No commercial vehicles |
| Major junctions | |
| South end: | Lincoln Memorial Circle on the National Mall |
 I‑66 in Foggy Bottom US 29 in West End
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| North end: | Shoreham / Beach Drives in Rock Creek Park |
| Highway system | |
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Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway Historic District
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| Location | Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, Washington, District of Columbia |
| Coordinates | 38°54′47″N 77°3′16″W / 38.91306°N 77.05444°W |
| Area | 0 acres (0 ha) |
| Built | 1889 |
| Architect | Olmsted, Frederick Law, Jr.; Langdon, James G. |
| Architectural style | Designed Historic Landscape |
| MPS | Parkways of the National Capital Region MPS |
| NRHP Reference # | 05000367 |
| Added to NRHP | May 4, 2005 |
The Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, often known simply as the Rock Creek Parkway, is a parkway maintained by the National Park Service as part of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. It runs next to the Potomac River and Rock Creek in a generally north–south direction, carrying four lanes of traffic from the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Memorial Bridge north to a junction with Beach Drive near Connecticut Avenue at Calvert Street, N.W., just south of the National Zoological Park.
The Parkway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 4, 2005. Built from 1923 to 1936, it is "one of the best-preserved examples of the earliest stage of motor parkway development".
During rush hours, a reversible lane setup is used between Ohio Drive and Connecticut Avenue to permit all lanes to be used for the predominant direction of travel. More specifically, the Parkway is one-way southbound on weekdays from 6:45 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and one-way northbound from 3:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Plans for Rock Creek Park announced by the National Park Service in November 2005 include a redesign of the intersection between the Parkway and Beach Drive for greater safety and a reduction of the speed limit on part of Beach Drive from 25 mph (40 km/h) to 20 mph (30 km/h).
The Parkway has two points of origination on its southern end, one at the traffic circle around the Lincoln Memorial, and the other at the intersection of Ohio Drive and Independence Avenue. The eastern portion of the Lincoln Memorial traffic circle has been closed for several years, and there is no longer any easy access to the northbound parkway from that point. The Ohio Drive branch is now the main originating branch. Before the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge (I-66) was built, Constitution Avenue ran to the parkway, with Ohio Drive ending at Constitution Avenue. The parkway's entrance is framed by two monumental statues, "Music and Harvest" and "Aspiration and Literature", which together form a group known as The Arts of Peace. They were designed by James Earle Fraser and erected in 1951.
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Wikipedia