Local Transportation and Traffic

Rock Creek Parkway reconstruction

Approx. Dates: 2010-11-15 - 2012-05-15

On Nov. 15, the National Park Service began an 18-month project to repair and rebuild parts of the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway between P Street NW and Calvert Street NW, and an area along Cathedral Avenue. This left many morning commuters confused. The Post's Mark Berman, who knows the area well, offers this advice:

During the morning rush, the Cathedral Avenue and Woodley Road ramps to the southbound parkway are closed. Between 6:30 and 10 a.m., traffic can enter the Calvert Street ramp (adjacent to the Shoreham Hotel) and proceed to the southbound parkway.

If you can't get onto Rock Creek Parkway in this vicinity while it's southbound-only in the morning, you might want to consider hopping on the roadway at a later time. Try heading south and jumping on at P Street, for example (it might take a little while to head south on Connecticut or Wisconsin Avenue to make your way to P Street, but at least it gets you onto Rock Creek).

Overview

Here's what the park service says about entering and exiting the parkway during this first phase, scheduled to last two months: Between 6:30 and 10 a.m., traffic can enter the Calvert Street ramp (adjacent to the Shoreham Hotel) and proceed to the southbound parkway.

At all other times, including the afternoon rush, from 3:45 to 7 p.m., parkway traffic can go northbound only on the ramp to Calvert Street.

After 10 a.m., traffic can go northbound only onto Cathedral Avenue and onto Woodley Road and Connecticut Avenue. But there will be no access to the Calvert Street ramp and the parkway from southbound Cathedral Avenue during this phase of construction.

Phase 2

Once construction is done on the northbound exit of Shoreham Drive, the next phase of the project will start. That will involve repair and reconstruction on the southbound lane of Shoreham Drive, leading from Calvert Street onto the southbound parkway.

Routes:Rock Creek Parkway

Locations: