16 U.S.C. § 460a–2 — Blue Ridge Parkway; establishment; administration and maintenance

All lands and easements heretofore or hereafter conveyed to the United States by the States of Virginia and North Carolina for the right-of-way for the projected parkway between the Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks, together with sites acquired or to be acquired for recreational areas in connection therewith, and a right-of-way for said parkway of a width sufficient to include the highway and all bridges, ditches, cuts, and fills appurtenant thereto, but not exceeding a maximum of two hundred feet through Government-owned lands (except that where small parcels of Government-owned lands would otherwise be isolated, or where topographic conditions or scenic requirements are such that bridges, ditches, cuts, fills, parking overlooks, landscape development, recreational and other facilities requisite to public use of said parkway could not reasonably be confined to a width of two hundred feet, the said maximum may be increased to such width as may be necessary, with the written approval of the department or agency having jurisdiction over such lands) as designated on maps heretofore or hereafter approved by the Secretary of the Interior, shall be known as the Blue Ridge Parkway and shall be administered and maintained by the Secretary of the Interior through the National Park Service, subject to the provisions of the Act of Congress approved August 25, 1916 (39 Stat. 535), entitled “An Act to establish a National Park Service, and for other purposes”,1 the provisions of which Act, as amended and supplemented, are extended over and made applicable to said parkway: Provided, That the Secretary of Agriculture is authorized, with the concurrence of the Secretary of the Interior, to connect with the parkway such roads and trails as may be necessary for the protection, administration, or utilization of adjacent and nearby national forests and the resources thereof: And provided further, That the Forest Service and the National Park Service shall, insofar as practicable, coordinate and correlate such recreational development as each may plan, construct, or permit to be constructed, on lands within their respective jurisdictions which, by mutual agreement, should be given special treatment for recreational purposes.