Canal Parkway: Wiley Ford Bridge (Potomac River) to MD 51

Prior to construction of Canal Parkway, the only access from downtown Cumberland to South Cumberland Municipal Airport was a 2-lane road with a narrow underpass at the CSX railroad. One-half mile back-ups were common during rush hour.

Canal Parkway is a new 1.6 mile long 2-lane parkway that provides an alternate access route; however, it was designed to do more than simply satisfy a transportation need. Working closely with the State Highway Administration, National Parks Service, City of Cumberland, and the Canal Place Preservation and Development Authority, we designed the parkway to be compatible with the adjacent C&O Canal Historic Park, including the planned rewatering of the canal to accommodate barges for tourists. Of special interest is the truss bridge we designed to carry the parkway over the C&O Canal. The bridge, with its stone abutments and wingwalls, not only invokes a historical feel, but also provides a practical solution to a clearance problem: it minimized the depth of the structure, enabling barges on the Canal to pass beneath it. The alternative would have required raising the nearby existing Wiley Ford Bridge over the Potomac River.

The overall project won a Merit Award from the Maryland and Potomac Chapters of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the bridge over the C&O Canal won the 1998 "Outstanding Civil Engineering Achievement" from the Maryland Section of the American Society of Civil Engineers.