Construction on Trolley Trail gap in Riverdale Park to begin soon

Cafritz is developing Riverdale Park Station on property that straddles the old DC-Laurel trolley right of way. The land used to be Calvert Homes, built as WWII surge housing by the National Capital Housing Authority to serve workers at the ERCO plant which built light aircraft during the war. Several sections of that right-of-way in College Park and Hyattsville have been turned into trails and, as seen in the rendering above, Cafritz will continue the trail across their property. Cafritz just announced that advance work on that will begin in the next two to six months. 

The trail will run north-south, and on the site plan below is along an extended Rhode Island Avenue.

 

Here's a video (ad really) with more.

Update: The project will also include a new bridge over the railroad tracks. That has not been designed yet, but the designers note that they "will construct an urban table top over the bridge to incorporate architectural features and provide green space for pedestrians accessing the redeveloped site on foot or by bicycle."

South of there, there is a crossing at East West Highway, but that's a little rough. Queensbury Road is good, even if it is at grade. North, you either have to use the College Park Metro underpass (escalators and stairs, etc...) or go to Paint Branch Parkway. Perhaps this could lead to a connection/expansion to the Northeast Branch trail along Wells Run. 

Comments

[Greenbelt]

The picture looks nice, but I wish the bike trail were a little more trail-y and less sidewalk-y. Maybe a painted stripe?

[Mike]

the more I look at Frankenstein bike man in that picture, the more creeped out I get.

[washcycle]

Mike, that's a photo of me. I've really tried to recover from my creation surgery years ago in a Swiss castle, so I have to tell you that this comment hurts.

[TransitSnob]

Cool, but massive parking lots (1,300 spaces). Ugh. Not conducive to being bike/ped friendly.

[John]

Good information, but wrong in one respect. North of the Cafritz property, a cyclist can connect to the northeast branch trail by following the trolley trail to the Lake Artemesia path, and then connecting to the Northeast Branch Trail on the other side of Lake Artemesia. Alternatively, the MARC pedestrian tunnel at the College Park METRO station is a much better route for cyclists getting to the east side of the tracks than the METRO elevator/stairs, as there are no stairs required on the MARC underpass side, though it does require crossing the CSX tracks at a well-maintained crossing point.

[dynaryder]

Agree with Greenbelt,there needs to be striping. That pic actually does a good job of showing what would happen otherwise;you'll have peds all over the place.

[Purple Eagle]

The road/connection over the RR tracks was a critical component of the project - the developers could not get approval from the county without it. Otherwise there is only one way in/out (by car) and there was concern about traffic congestion on route 1. The new bridge should provide a good connection to the NE Branch Trail in the area just north of River Rd, via the M Square research area. Could also get a lot of cut-through car traffic from drivers trying to avoid E-W highway and downtown College Park.

[Greenbelt]

The M Square area would be a good candidate for a road diet and improved landscaping. There's not much traffic even at rush hour that two lanes (one each way, with left turn storage) couldn't easily support. That would give room for bike lanes on the streets to help the connection over the bridge to the NE Branch trail.

[Carol B.]

Today I rode past the barrels at Riverdale Park and it looks like RP has paved the Trolley Trail all the way to the South edge of the Cafritz development, at which point it is ballast and blocked off.On the College Park /Albion side it is still brush and I did not venture down.