Page:America's Highways 1776–1976.djvu/515

 No tangible progress was made until the passage of the 1928 Act. The Secretary of Agriculture immediately delegated the duty of surveying and supervising the construction of the highway to the Bureau of Public Roads. Earlier the Bureau had made reconnaissance surveys of two possible locations at the request of the Committee on Roads of the House of Representatives, one an inland route and the other a route along the shore of the Potomac River. With the approval of the Bicentennial Commission, the river route was selected as having the greater scenic and historical advantage, and offering superiority for the development of park areas between the highway and the river. Surveying and determining the final location were begun on June 15, 1928, and the work was pursued with all possible vigor. The development of the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway was most fortuitous because it provided an opportunity for the BPR to further develop the parkway design concept. In 1930 Congress enlarged the concept of the Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway to provide for the development of a parkway along the shores of the Potomac all the way up to Great Falls in Virginia and from Fort Washington to Great Falls in Maryland, incorporating the parkway section already under construction as part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

The Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway in Virginia a couple years after it was opened to traffic in 1932.

The Mount Vernon Memorial Parkway was completed on schedule and was dedicated in a special ceremony in conjunction with the annual meeting of the American Association of State Highway Officials in 1932. This occasion afforded highway engineers a chance to see at firsthand an example of the full development of the parkway concept. Forty-four years 509