A dumb DC question: how to go South on GWP from Roosevelt Island?

[Anonymous]

I won't say how long I have lived in the DC metro area and not figured this out, but please help me: how do you get headed south on the GW Parkway when leaving Roosevelt Island? Do you go up to the 66 ramp and then turn around somewhere?
If you have a good way to get to Roosevelt Island while coming south on the parkway I'd take that, too. I stay on the Parkway all the way to Reagan and then go through the airport and exit back onto the Parkway north. I acknowledge that this might be dumbest thing you have heard today, this week, or in 2019. But you know what? It works.
Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Yep. You can enter and exit only from the northbound direction unless you are on the bike trail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I won't say how long I have lived in the DC metro area and not figured this out, but please help me: how do you get headed south on the GW Parkway when leaving Roosevelt Island? Do you go up to the 66 ramp and then turn around somewhere?
If you have a good way to get to Roosevelt Island while coming south on the parkway I'd take that, too. I stay on the Parkway all the way to Reagan and then go through the airport and exit back onto the Parkway north. I acknowledge that this might be dumbest thing you have heard today, this week, or in 2019. But you know what? It works.
Thanks.

Get off the Parkway at Georgetown. Loop over the bridge and go north.

[Anonymous]

The GWP is terrible in this regard. Think about Spout Run. If you want to get into the northern part of Arlington coming southbound from the beltway, you either have to get off in McLean/123 and cut through from Chain Bridge, or go all the way down to 50 - the Key Bridge exit into Arlington was closed off years ago. Honestly sometimes to go to Roosevelt Island I park in Rosslyn and walk over the footbridge.

[Anonymous]

It's easier leaving Roosevelt Island. Head north on the parkway, get off on Spout Run, stay in the left lane, and there's a turn around where you can make what's like a U turn (I think the sign says "to DC" or something like that). It just puts you on the southbound side of the Parkway.

Getting to the park from the south is more complicated, and I don't have an easy solution.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's easier leaving Roosevelt Island. Head north on the parkway, get off on Spout Run, stay in the left lane, and there's a turn around where you can make what's like a U turn (I think the sign says "to DC" or something like that). It just puts you on the southbound side of the Parkway.

Getting to the park from the south is more complicated, and I don't have an easy solution.

Sorry, meant getting to the park from the north!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's easier leaving Roosevelt Island. Head north on the parkway, get off on Spout Run, stay in the left lane, and there's a turn around where you can make what's like a U turn (I think the sign says "to DC" or something like that). It just puts you on the southbound side of the Parkway.

Getting to the park from the south is more complicated, and I don't have an easy solution.

This. It's really the easiest way, even if an extra mile.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need to go all the way south to the airport to turn around. It’s still convoluted, but you can exit the GW parkway to go to Arlington Cemetery/Memorial bridge, and then continue in the roundabout circle past the bridge to GW parkway north.