Commuters and recreationists will get access to the northern part of Rock Creek Park on Friday when the National Park Service wraps rehabilitation work on Beach Drive.

The 6.5-mile project began three years ago and was split into four chunks. The latest segment to open, a 2.7-mile section from Joyce Road to the Maryland line, closed last July.

The green part of the map is the stretch of Beach Drive where repaving is complete. The red parts are reopening Friday at noon. The blue part is the old detour.

NPS said the project was done on time and on budget.

It involved tearing up the original road, which was built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1897, and relaying a new road foundation and pavement.

Work also involved rebuilding bridges, widening pedestrian and bike trails, working on drainage and reconstructing or rehabilitating parking areas. A construction staging area along Piney Branch Parkway is also getting cleaned up this week.

But the completed sections, with new smooth pavement, have also brought more speeding drivers. The Park Service installed speed tables in some areas near the National Zoo.

“We’re very excited that we’ve stayed within the historical footprint of the road,” said Julia Washburn, superintendent of Rock Creek Park. “And we’ve also been able to make sure try to take care of the ecological resources of Rock Creek Park, in the process of doing the restoration.”

Washburn said the road was last repaved in 1991, but the original road was never meant to be a commuter route.

“It was built as they were developing the park and was intended to be a scenic driving road through a beautiful rural environment,” Washburn said, adding that the route now sees 12 million commuters using it each year and provides access for about 40,000 recreational users each week. Washburn said the NPS was able to fix a number of the paved multi-use trails.

“It’s better for everyone, both the commuters and the recreational visitors,” she says.

Washburn said while the major road projects in Rock Creek Park are over, there are smaller projects coming. Piney Branch Parkway will eventually get a complete reconstruction and a new multi-use trail alongside it. Pedestrians, runners and cyclists already use the route and have created “desire paths” in the grass.

This story originally appeared at WAMU.