Visitors have swarmed to a new Fairfax County park touted as the most expansive disabled-friendly playground in the area, leaving officials to deal with a glut of cars spilling out from the overwhelmed parking lot.
“It’s a wonderful problem to have,” said Park Authority spokeswoman Judy Pedersen. “Too many people love our park.”
The 18-acre Clemyjontri Park in McLean contains a 2-acre playground that boasts an array of rides accessible to children with disabilities, anchored by a ground-level carousel that can be accessed by wheelchair. The park’s quirky title is a conglomerate of the names of the four children of Adele Lebowitz, who donated the land it sits on.
In the first 30-days after the park opened on October, officials counted 12,000 visitors, said Todd Johnson, director of park operations for the Fairfax County Park Authority. About 1,000 people came on opening day.
“We expect it to diminish, based on our experience with many other parks,” Pedersen said. “It’s new, it’s novel. A lot of kids just wanted to see it for the first time.”
The crowds are expected to thin out in time. But for now, the 80-space parking lot has proved inadequate to handle all the cars, and park authority staff are worried that visitors are parking too close to children.
