Suitland Parkway | |
|---|---|
 Suitland Parkway highlighted in red | |
| Route information | |
| Maintained by NPS | |
| Length | 9.1 mi[1] (14.6 km) |
| Existed | 1944–present |
| Restrictions | No trucks east of Alabama Avenue[2] |
| Major junctions | |
| West end |  I-295 in Washington, D.C. |
 MD 5 in Suitland, MD MD 458 in Suitland, MD MD 337 in Forestville, MD | |
| East end |  MD 4 in Forestville, MD |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| Highway system | |
Suitland Parkway | |
| Nearest city | Suitland, Maryland |
| Coordinates | 38°50′49″N 76°58′5″W / 38.84694°N 76.96806°W |
| Area | 418.9 acres (169.5 ha) |
| Built | 1944 |
| MPS | Parkways of the National Capital Region MPS |
| NRHP reference No. | 95000604[3] |
| Added to NRHP | June 2, 1995[3] |
The Suitland Parkway is a limited-access parkway in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, administered and maintained by the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), National Capital Parks-East. The road has partial controlled access with a combination of interchanges and at-grade intersections, but without property access for neighboring land-owners. Conceived in 1937, it was built during World War II to provide a road connection between military facilities in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and is named after Suitland, Maryland. It fully opened on December 9, 1944 as the Camp Springs highway, so called because it connected Camp Springs (now Joint Base Andrews) in Prince George's County with Bolling Air Force Base.[4][5] However one lane of the highway was opened in mid-October 1944.[6]
The Suitland Parkway is 9.35 miles (15.05 km) long. Its eastern terminus is at Pennsylvania Avenue (Maryland Route 4), just outside the Capital Beltway and near Joint Base Andrews. Its western terminus is at Interstate 295 and the northbound approach to the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.
The parkway was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995. It is also part of the National Highway System. The eastern half was a two-lane limited-access road, and the western half a four-lane divided limited-access road. In the 1990s the eastern half was doubled in size to match the western half, with that work completed in 1996.[7] Around the same time a 2-mile-long trail, the Suitland Parkway Trail, was constructed from Pomeroy Road to Southern Avenue.
- ^ "Suitland Parkway" (Map). Google Maps. Retrieved December 26, 2013.
- ^ 36 CFR 7.96 (f )(1)) Archived 2009-08-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ Suitland Parkway (U.S. Reservation 675), National Park Service
- ^ Jere L. Krakow (August 1993). "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Suitland Parkway" (PDF). Maryland Historical Trust. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
- ^ "9 1/2 Mile Military Road Opened to Camp Springs". The Evening Star. October 19, 1944.
- ^ Spellman, Karyn (October 28, 1996). "Wider parkway ready for smooth commuting". The Washington Times.