Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway

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The parkway as seen from the Pennsylvania Avenue bridge looking north. The centerline is dashed because the road is one-way during rush hours.

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, carrying four lanes from the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington Memorial Bridge north to a junction with Beach Drive near Connecticut Avenue and 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".^[1]

Signage on Beach Drive indicates the times that the Parkway is one-way.

A reversible lane setup is used between Ohio Drive and Connecticut Avenue; during rush hours, all lanes are used for the prevailing direction of travel. More specifically, the Parkway is one-way southbound on weekdays from 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and one-way northbound from 3:45 p.m. to 6:30 p.m..^[2]

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).

[edit] Route description

The Parkway begins with two legs - one from the traffic circle around the Lincoln Memorial, and the other from Ohio Drive and Independence Avenue. The east half of the traffic circle is now closed, but traffic to and from the Parkway can still only turn right, so the Ohio Drive branch is now the main one; traffic from the circle must stop at the merge. Before the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge (I-66) was built, Constitution Avenue ran to the Parkway, with Ohio Drive ending at Constitution Avenue.

After passing under the Roosevelt Bridge, the Parkway passes the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, including an at-grade intersection with F Street Northwest north of the building. Prior to the building of the Kennedy Center, New Hampshire Avenue ran to the Parkway. After F Street, the Parkway runs past the Watergate building and turns away from the Potomac River before intersecting Virginia Avenue, which provides easy access to and from the Potomac River Freeway (I-66).

Past Virginia Avenue, the Parkway has many characteristics of a freeway, including a lack of cross traffic and access only at ramps. The first interchange is with K Street Northwest, lying inside the newer Whitehurst Freeway/Potomac River Freeway interchange. Due to the partial nature of the interchange, some movements are made via Virginia Avenue instead. Just to the west, K Street crosses Rock Creek, with the Whitehurst Freeway overhead and separate side bridges for the ramps to and from the northbound Parkway. After K Street, the Parkway crosses Rock Creek, paralleling it to the west for a while.

Pennsylvania Avenue crosses over both the Parkway and the Creek on a combined bridge, with a single loop ramp from the southbound Parkway to Pennsylvania Avenue eastbound. Just to the north, M Street Northwest also crosses the Parkway and Creek together, with no access between the roads.

Further north, P Street Northwest crosses the Parkway and Creek, with ramps from P Street to the Parkway both northbound and southbound and from the southbound Parkway to P Street. Just after crossing under P Street, the Parkway crosses to the east side of the Creek, and a northbound onramp from P Street merges. It passes under Q Street Northwest's Dumbarton Bridge over the Creek with no access.

The Charles C. Glover Bridge carries Massachusetts Avenue over the Parkway and Creek. Access is provided to and from the south via Waterside Drive, which merges into the Parkway at a Y interchange. To the north, Waterside Drive merges back into the Parkway, providing for all movements but a southbound offramp. Soon after, the Parkway again crosses to the west side of the Creek.

The end of the Parkway is near an intersection with Beach Drive, which continues next to the Creek into Maryland. The intersection does not provide for an entrance to Beach Drive from local roads. Just north of Beach Drive, the Parkway again splits, with Cathedral Avenue heading northeast next to Beach Drive under the William H. Taft Bridge and Duke Ellington Bridge (Connecticut Avenue and Calvert Street), and the Parkway becoming 24th Street Northwest at Calvert Street, with easy access to Connecticut Avenue. Cathedral Avenue is one-way at the same times as the Parkway. Beach Drive continues as a two-lane road parallel to Rock Creek, almost immediately entering a tunnel under a hill.