BRIDGES OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

Park Road Bridge, Washington, DC

From the Rock Creek Trail at the intersection of Piney Branch Parkway with Beach Drive in Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., a high-profile, green steel-girder bridge is visible to the east. Constructed in 1958, this bridge carries Park Drive, a narrow, winding two-lane road that provides access between the residential Mount Pleasant neighborhood south of Piney Branch Park down into Rock Creek Park. At Peirce Mill, Park Road crosses Beach Drive and the Peirce Mill Bridge, and then continues back up to the west side of Rock Creek Park to Connecticut Avenue as Tilden Street.

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The bridge gets very little attention or respect from most investigators. The Historic American Engineering Record for the Rock Creek Park Road system gives the bridge a single sentence, reading “Piney Branch Parkway also passes under an undistinguished bridge constructed and maintained by the D.C. Highway Department to carry Park Road over the stream valley.” Another author considered the bridge to be a “non-contributing property” to the Rock Creek Park Historic District.

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There is no access from Piney Branch Parkway below to the deck of the bridge, resulting in the bridge being somewhat remote and relatively little known. Although many vehicles pass under the bridge, the eastern end is in a quiet, residential neighborhood that does not get much traffic. There are no decorations or plaques to be seen.

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Despite being relatively remote and dismissed, the bridge is not unattractive. It does seem unusual that it was not constructed as a concrete arch bridge, since concrete arches had been the prevailing model for the Rock Creek Park bridges for fifty years. However, it is clean, freshly painted, and well-kept, and has wide sidewalks with great views of the ravine and Parkway below.

Because the bridge is “undistinguished”, and space was limited, I was unable to provide any information about the bridge in my book, Bridges of Washington, DC: A History and Guide. But I do think it is worthwhile to offer some photos here.