Unless you enjoy wasting your weekend sitting in traffic, you may want to avoid driving downtown on Saturday. Three street-closing events—the National Asian Heritage Festival, the National Police Week 5K race, and the DC101 Chili Cook Off (which will feature two DCist staffers as judges, stay tuned for more details!) — will be joining forces Power Rangers-style to snarl traffic.

Pennsylvania Avenue will be closed between 3rd and 6th streets NW from 2 a.m. until and 11 p.m. Saturday, and the Police 5K race will bring “rolling street closures” to all four quadrants of the city between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. The Chili Cook-Off will be held at the site of the old convention center at 11th Street and New York Avenue NW from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m., and though no scheduled street closures are planned, you can bet you won’t want to drive anywhere near it thanks to the thousands of pedestrians and other folks trying to park who will descend on the area. More specific details about restricted access to streets on Saturday can be found here.

UPDATE: via FreeRide, also be aware that OPRAH IS COMING to speak at Howard’s commencement and you will all need to stop what you’re doing while she parades through Shaw on unicorn that sits atop a giant magical floating castle made of ice and the dreams of little girls and … OK so they’re just restricting parking around the university. Check out the details here.

Photo by easement

Filed Under: Chili Cook, chili cook-off, convention, convention center, dcist, downtown, events, new york, new york avenue, New York Avenue NW, parking, pennsylvania avenue, photos, police, Power Rangers, race, rangers, the city, the police, traffic, transportation, university, York Avenue,