(Photo by bankbryan)

Drivers who take Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park will see new construction zones starting next week.

On Monday evening, the 1.5-mile stretch from Broad Branch Road to Joyce Road reopens. The section has been closed since August 2017. That same night, the 2.7-mile section from Joyce Road to the Maryland line closes. The closure is expected to last until fall of 2019.

The closure affects drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists who use the wooded thoroughfare in Northwest D.C.

Detours will take drivers to East-West Highway and 16th Street Northwest.

Nearly 32,000 cars a day already use 16th Street Northwest, so some residents in the area are concerned about the additional traffic.

Beach Drive hosts more than 25,000 commuters each weekday, and is a haven for cyclists and joggers on the weekend.

But the road, which opened in 1897, wasn’t built for that kind of traffic. The last major update to the road was about 25 years ago, and it is pock-marked and patched.

The National Park Service has been tearing out and replacing sections of the road since 2016.

The Park Service is excavating the entire road, placing a new gravel base and then laying asphalt.

It’s also widening pedestrian and bike trails, working on drainage and reconstructing or rehabilitating parking areas.

For more information on the project, visit the National Park Service website.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.