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Nearly four years of construction have ended on the George Washington Memorial Parkway’s busiest stretch, giving drivers through McLean and Arlington a route free of shifting lanes and work zones.
Federal officials gathered Monday at Turkey Run Park in McLean to rededicate the parkway’s 7.6-mile northern section. The $161 million rehabilitation was the first major upgrade since the extension opened in 1962.
National Park Service Comptroller Jessica Bowron said the project improved safety and ride quality while preserving the road’s historic character. The ceremony featured the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and a George Washington reenactor.
The National Park Service and Federal Highway Administration repaved the parkway between Spout Run Parkway and the Capital Beltway, redesigned the Route 123 interchange and repaired stormwater systems. Crews also reconstructed stone walls and roadside barriers and improved historic overlooks.
About 26 million motorists use the northern section annually, amounting to roughly 71,000 trips per day. Sen. Mark Warner called it by far the parkway’s most heavily traveled segment and said it had deteriorated badly after passing 50 years without a substantial renovation.
The project used 110,000 tons of asphalt—enough to fill 17 Olympic-sized swimming pools—and 29,700 linear feet of pipe, according to Federal Highway Administration Administrator Sean McMaster.
Years of pressure led to the overhaul
Warner and other members of Congress began raising concerns in 2019 about the national park system’s mounting maintenance backlog. At the time, deferred work totaled an estimated $11.9 billion, including $293 million for the GW Parkway and $34 million for Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts.
The parkway’s problems became especially visible in 2019, when a failed culvert created a sinkhole near Route 123, also known as Dolley Madison Boulevard. The damage forced a closure lasting nearly three months.
In March 2020, Virginia’s senators and Northern Virginia representatives urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to approve a $102 million grant to rebuild the northern section.
Congress later passed the Great American Outdoors Act, which President Donald Trump signed in August 2020 during his first term. The law directed revenue from energy development on federal land into a fund for high-priority deferred maintenance at national parks, forests and other public lands.
The late Rep. John Lewis of Georgia sponsored the House bill, while Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado sponsored it in the Senate. Warner and Sen. Tim Kaine were co-sponsors.
Warner said the law generated about $10 billion for improvements, including $6.5 billion for the National Park Service. Virginia received approximately $400 million, helping the park service announce the northern GW Parkway project in late 2021. Construction began in July 2022.
Rep. Don Beyer said the bipartisan investment made the roadway safer for commuters, families, cyclists and visitors.
Although work started under the Biden administration, McMaster and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum connected its completion to renovations pursued around Washington since Trump returned to office in January 2025. Those projects include fountain restorations, work on the Reflecting Pool and Union Station, and an overhaul of Dulles International Airport.
Southern parkway could need $300 million
The northern section’s completion leaves a much larger national maintenance problem unresolved. Warner said deferred work across the national park system now exceeds $24 billion.
Funding from the Great American Outdoors Act expired at the end of 2025. More than 60 senators, including Warner and Kaine, are supporting the America the Beautiful Act, which would revive the National Parks and Public Lands Restoration Fund and increase annual funding from $1.9 billion to $2 billion.
Warner said the D.C. region’s next major priority should be a similar renovation of the GW Parkway south of Memorial Bridge.
Beyer, whose 8th District includes the southern section extending to George Washington’s Mount Vernon, estimated that work could cost as much as $300 million. That part of the parkway has aging infrastructure and persistent safety concerns, including fatal crashes. Unlike the northern segment, it has no physical median separating opposing traffic.
The National Park Service announced in early 2024 that it would begin preliminary design work for a reconfiguration of the southern parkway and improvements to the Mount Vernon Trail. No construction funding has been identified.
At the beginning of 2026, the Trump administration imposed higher entrance fees on non-U.S. residents at 11 heavily visited national parks, saying the change would help pay for maintenance. Beyer said those fees would not generate enough money to close the gap and argued that Congress still needs to pass the America the Beautiful Act.
Warner also criticized the reported diversion of millions of dollars in park entrance fees to Washington-area projects, including fountain repairs, the Reflecting Pool refill, Trump’s planned Fourth of July fireworks display and the installation of a statue of Revolutionary War officer and slaveholder Caesar Rodney that had been removed in Delaware. He said the spending may benefit the capital region but is unfair to other parts of the country.
Warner and Beyer said the proposed America the Beautiful Act would not fund Trump’s planned arch on federal land between Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery.
Beyer called the proposed structure, which would stand at more than twice the height of the Lincoln Memorial, an inappropriate intrusion on the surrounding landscape. Both lawmakers said they had not encountered support for it among residents of Northern Virginia or Washington.
Warner questioned where money for the arch would come from and said any renewed federal support for public parks would exclude it.