Roads, Routes and Parkways

In many ways, national parks and the automobile grew up together; the two are inextricably linked. The National Park Service (NPS) was founded in 1916 and just two years later, more visitors came to Yosemite National Park by car than by train. 'Auto touring' national parks quickly became a national past time. Soonafter, a generation of NPS landscape architects and designers set out to design roads as experiences, not just transportation routes. In the process they transformed national parks, the fields of landscape architecture, engineering and design, and the nation.

Today, over 5,000 miles of paved roads traverse the national park system, including parkways. A team of dedicated professionals work hard to plan, maintain, and manage a complex road system the nation can be proud of.

Check out some of these amazing national park roads:

• Historic Scenic Byway, Natchez Trace Parkway
• Scenic Drives, Big Bend National Park
• Scenic Drive, Capitol Reef National Park
• Historic Rim Rock Drive, Colorado National Monument
• Going to the Sun Road, Glacier National Park
• Scenic By-Ways, Missouri National Recreational River
• Historic Route 66, Petrified Forest National Park
• Scenic Drives, Rocky Mountain National Park
• Generals Highway, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks
• Skyline Drive, Shenandoah National Park