The K Street Bridge is a complex of bridges over Rock Creek and the

Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway The Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, informally called the Rock Creek Parkway, is a parkway maintained by the National Park Service as part of Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. It runs next to the Potomac River and Rock Creek in a generally n ...

in Washington, D.C. The lower level of the bridge carries the

surface street A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...

K Street, while the upper level carries the

Whitehurst Freeway Whitehurst may refer to: People: * Albert Whitehurst, English footballer * Andrew Whitehurst, British visual effects artist * Billy Whitehurst, English professional footballer during the 1980s * Charlie Whitehurst, NFL quarterback * David Whitehurs ...

(

U.S. Route 29 U.S. Route 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida to the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland in the Southern United States, connecting the Florida Panhandle to the Baltimore-Washington me ...

) which terminates and merges into K Street immediately east of the bridge. The central bridge is flanked by two

flyover ramp An overpass (called an overbridge or flyover in the United Kingdom and some other Commonwealth countries) is a bridge, road, railway or similar structure that crosses over another road or railway. An ''overpass'' and ''underpass'' together form ...

s that connect to the nearby terminus of

Interstate 66 Interstate 66 (I-66) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the eastern United States. It runs from an interchange with I-81 near Middletown, Virginia, on its western end to an interchange with U.S. Route 29 (US 29) in Washingt ...

.Ross, Amy (1992).
History and Description
/ref> The first bridge on the site was a stone arch bridge constructed in 1792; it was only the second crossing of Rock Creek built, the first being at M Street. This bridge was found to be unstable and its center arch was demolished in 1795. In 1869, a wood bridge was constructed, and in 1907 it was replaced by a steel-plate girder bridge. The completion of the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway in 1936 increased traffic on the K Street Bridge, necessitating its replacement. The lower level of the current bridge was constructed between 1939 and 1941, and the upper level, connecting to the Whitehurst Freeway, was constructed from 1947 to 1949. The designers of the current K Street Bridge also designed the Charles C. Glover Memorial Bridge farther up the river. The bridge is built of concrete, faced with

gneiss Gneiss ( ) is a common and widely distributed type of metamorphic rock. It is formed by high-temperature and high-pressure metamorphic processes acting on formations composed of igneous or sedimentary rocks. Gneiss forms at higher temperatures an ...

. The flanking ramps were constructed in the early 1960s. They initially contained unused branches intended to connect to the unbuilt North Leg of the Inner Loop Expressway. These ramps were demolished in the mid-1990s.Davis, Timothy (1992).
History and Description
pp. 13, 109, 125 The bulk of the K Street Bridge, with its many ramps, was considered to be more of a visual barrier than the other bridges across Rock Creek. This was a result of transportation efficiency taking precedence over aesthetic concerns in this case, perhaps because at the time of its construction the surrounding neighborhoods were industrial or poor residential areas.

Gallery

File:HISTORIC VIEW LOOKING FROM PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE BRIDGE SOUTH TO OLD (1907 STEEL-GIRDER) K STREET BRIDGE. MLK LIBRARY. - K Street Bridge, Spanning Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, HAER DC,WASH,603-5 cropped.tif, The 1907 bridge File:HISTORIC VIEW OF K STREET BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION, APRIL 17, 1941. MLK LIBRARY (Negative No. 2622). - K Street Bridge, Spanning Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway, Washington, HAER DC,WASH,603-4 cropped.tif, The original portion of the current bridge in 1941

References

{{coord, 38.902531, -77.057725, type:landmark_region:US-DC, display=title Bridges over Rock Creek (Potomac River tributary) Georgetown (Washington, D.C.) Road bridges in Washington, D.C. U.S. Route 29 Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System

Gallery

See also

References