On Sunday, March 5, 2023, the National Park Service (NPS) will close both northbound lanes of the George Washington Memorial Parkway to remove an abandoned vehicle that is below the road near the Potomac River. The NPS expects to close the lanes between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m. from Spout Run Parkway to Chain Bridge Road, VA 123. The southbound lanes will remain open. The NPS will also temporarily close parts of the Potomac Heritage Trail near the vehicle for up to half an hour at a time while the work is happening.
The abandoned vehicle is located below the parkway next to the Potomac River near Donaldson Run. The car left the road during a snowstorm in January of 2022. The driver sustained non-life-threatening injuries.
The George Washington Memorial Parkway is a scenic roadway and memorial to the first president of the United States. When the NPS completed the northern part of the parkway in 1962, the NPS used the most up-to-date road engineering methods by integrating a wide, gently curving roadway with a grassy median, low stone guide walls and soaring steel-and-concrete arched bridges. Today the George Washington Memorial Parkway facilitates travel for more than 33 million vehicles per year, with the northern section seeing the heaviest traffic of about 85,000 daily users.
As a critical link in the national capital region's transportation network, closing the parkway is never a decision the NPS makes lightly.
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