Much of the local travel activity this weekend will be stimulated by the holiday season. Watch for extra traffic around the D.C. region’s shopping centers on Saturday and Sunday. This also is a weekend for many holiday festivals.
Sporting events: The Midshipmen play football at noon Saturday in Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium, Annapolis. The Baltimore Ravens are home in M&T Bank Stadium at 1 p.m. Sunday. BB&T Classic college basketball games are at Verizon Center, starting at 1:30 p.m. Sunday.
Below, you will find details of some of the weekend’s holiday events, plus the Metrorail schedule. (This is the first weekend for the SafeTrack maintenance project on the Orange and Silver lines.)
Holiday events
The Scottish Christmas Walk Parade begins in Old Town Alexandria at 11 a.m. Saturday. The parade of marching and musical units and classic cars starts at St. Asaph and Wolfe streets, travels north across King Street and ends with a concert at Market Square in front of Alexandria’s City Hall.
The annual Holiday Boat Parade of Lights, pictured above, is scheduled to begin at 5:30 p.m. Saturday on the Alexandria waterfront. More than 40 illuminated boats will travel up the Potomac and into the District’s Washington Channel. Prime viewpoints are Waterfront Park in Alexandria and the Wharf in Southwest Washington.
The Jingle All the Way 5K and 15K is scheduled to start on 15th Street NW near the Washington Monument at 8 a.m. Sunday. That’s also the finish line. See a course map.
Rockville’s Christmas tree lighting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Sunday in Town Square Plaza, 30 Maryland Ave.
The popular Festival of Lights is underway at the Mormon Temple, 9900 Stoneybrook Dr., in Kensington, just north of the Capital Beltway. Through Jan. 1, visitors see 650,000 lights on the temple grounds. The temple’s visitors’ center is open till 10 p.m. This will be a traffic-generating attraction, especially on weekends. See directions on this page.
The Prince George’s County Festival of Lights also is underway from 5-9:30 p.m. through Jan. 1 at Watkins Regional Park in Upper Marlboro. See a map on this page.
Metrorail
The rail system is open from 7 a.m. to midnight on Saturday and Sunday.
Red Line. From 10 p.m. Friday through Sunday’s closing, trains will share a track between Van Ness and Medical Center, where crews are working on switch maintenance. On Saturday, trains are scheduled to leave the ends of the line at Shady Grove and Glenmont every half-hour. More trains will be in service between Farragut North and Glenmont. So in that zone on Saturday, trains should reach platforms every 15 minutes.
On Sunday, the trains are scheduled to operate on their regular timetable, despite the single-tracking.
Orange Line. The SafeTrack maintenance project means trains will share a track between West Falls Church and East Falls Church through Dec. 21. This weekend, there’s an additional single-tracking zone between McPherson Square and Smithsonian, where crews are working on the rails. From 10 p.m. Friday through Sunday’s closing, the trains are scheduled to operate every 24 minutes.
Silver Line. The schedule is affected by the same SafeTrack project, with single-tracking between McLean and East Falls Church, as well as the single-tracking zone between McPherson Square and Smithsonian. Trains are scheduled to operate every 24 minutes.
Blue Line. Trains will go through the single-tracking zone between McPherson Square and Smithsonian all weekend. From 10 p.m. Friday through Saturday’s closing, they will go through another single-tracking zone between Addison Road and Largo, where crews will install communication cables. Through the weekend, trains are scheduled to operate every 24 minutes.
Yellow Line. Regular weekend service between Huntington and Fort Totten.
Green Line. Regular weekend service.
