Extending the Mount Vernon Trail North and South

The Mount Vernon Trail, originally built in two parts in 1972 and 1973 and expanded north in 1988, could potentially be extended in both directions in the future; but the south extension is something that is actually being worked on while the northern one is but a twinkle in a planner's eye. To be accurate though, the southern extension won't be called the Mt. Vernon Trail, likely because it won't be on NPS property, but rather the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway Trail. In fact, the project talks about extending the Potomac Heritage National Scenic Trail.

South to Richmond Highway. 

On the south, the Mt. Vernon Trail ends where the George Washington Parkway does at a traffic circle outside the Mt. Vernon Property. There the GW Parkway feeds directly into the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway. A sidepath, now many years old, can be found on the north side of the MVM Highway to Old Mill Road, where it crosses to the south side. Near Watkins Mill Elementary, there is a short trail gap. Then there's another section of trail on the north side to Grist Mill Park. After a longer gap there is a new section, built in 2017-18, from Grist Mill Woods Way to Richmond Highway, which has a sidepath and bike lanes. 

Fairfax County intends to close all those gaps, extending the trail more west than south, 2 miles in total length, for $6.5 million.

The new trail segments will be 10' in width with a wide buffer between them and the road. On the west end, the trail will continue on the north side of the highway connecting to a 185' long bridge over Dogue Creek.

(On the map below orange is the existing trail, cyan is the new section and red is the bridge, also new). 

The trail will stay on the north side after Dogue Creek, with a connection to Fort Belvoir at Walker Gate. Then at Grist Mill Drive it will end and users will cross to the Frontage Road. There will also be a new crosswalk at this point across the highway.

The Frontage Road will double as the trail all the way to Patton Boulevard and then another new section of trail will start and go all the way to the existing trail at Grist Mill Road.

Lastly they plan to close the gap by Washington Mill ES by building a crosswalk and a new trail segment on the south side of the highway.

This was all presented at a meeting last March. 

North to the American Legion Bridge

Back in 2002, NPS looked at extending the trail north to the American Legion Bridge. This followed on similar studies done by MWCOG in 1995 and VBF/WABA in 1998. The NPS extension was mostly on road, with some new trail sections north of Glebe.

South of Glebe, the extension would use the Custis Trail to get to Locorn at Spout Run Parkway, and then use Locorn, Nellie Custis, Military Road and Old Glebe to get to Glebe Road. All of those roads have bike lanes, so you could argue it already exists or that there is room for a cycletrack when the time comes. 

On the other side of Glebe it would go north on Richmond Street to an existing connection to a hiking trail along Pimmit Run. There they would build a separate MUT to Chain Bridge Road. This is considered the most crucial link in the whole system as no good alternatives were found. 

At Chain Bridge, there are then a couple of options. The red line is the on-road option and the cyan one is the, better, off-road option. The on-road option goes down Chain Bridge and Georgetown Pike to the Beltway with options along Colonial Farm, Machall and Ridge. The off-road option uses Crest lane, new trail sections built north of the Parkway and Turkey Run Loop Road to get to the American Legion Bridge, where a crossing could be built in the future. The on-road options could connect to a truncated version of the off road version to get to the ALB.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure I blogged about this in the past. The extension must've been deemed too hard, because it got dropped from the regional paved trails study in 2016.

 

That's why it's not mentioned in the new NPS National Capitol Region Long Range Transportation Plan documents (which also don't mention much about trails except that they are part of the transportation system). Although one participant at the 2015 pilot workshop mentioned that

While automobiles will continue to be the mode of choice, bicycle and pedestrian activity is growing for day-to-day activities and job commutes, not solely for recreation. This trend is most prominent in the inner rings of the region but is slowly moving outward. Trail systems and bus routes are helping to change the way visitors experience the region.

And the report from the first workshop in 2016 had a section on trails. 

• The recently-completed NCR Trail Plan should help inform the assets, but there are some gaps including trails outside the Beltway. This LRTP needs to fill the gaps to do a comprehensive plan for all transportation trails in the NCR
• There are a number of DC government owned sidewalks located on park properties. While these walkway facilities are not NPS-owned assets, the parks have maintenance responsibilities for them
• There are other non-park-owned sidewalks that are critical for access to parks, such as the terminus of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal in Cumberland, MD.

Perhaps an extended MVT, especially the Pimmit Run section, should be included as one of those gaps. While those favoring north expansion missed their chance with the Paved Trails Plan, there is still a chance to get it into the LRTP. 

If the extension had been included in the Paved Trails plan perhaps part of the work could have been done as part of the ongoing North Section Rehabilitation, at least in the areas where the trail would interface with the Parkway north of Crest.

So while there is a plan for extending the trail north, there is actually less of a plan to make it happen then there was in 2015.

Other Mount Vernon Trail stuff

Alexandria wants to redevelop the Crown Plaza on Fairfax Street next to the Mt. Vernon Trail. "The site will also create new widened sidewalks on the nearby streets and make $772,677 in improvements to the Mount Vernon Trail." I don't know what those improvements are.    

Comments

[freewheel]

The existing trail on Mt Vernon Memorial Highway is in terrible shape, and this project does not repair it. As you mention, the project is about connecting the gaps. Maintenance is a separate battle to be waged at a later date.

Speaking of later dates, my understanding was that the MV Memorial Hwy project lost its funding when Virginia agreed to give WMATA $154 million. Hope I'm wrong about that.

[Purple Eagle]

I would love to see the northern extension built. First read about the plan over 10 years ago and it's disappointing that no progress has been made.

[washcycle]

I'd say that even worse than no progress, it's actually moved backwards - since it was pulled from the paved trails plan. But we should work to get the Pimmit Run section into the LRTP.

[huskerdont]

I've done a lot of hiking over the years along Pimmet where the blue line is. It's hard to imagine any sort of paved trail there. The existing hiking trail is hilly, eroded, and has lower portions prone to flooding. I'm no engineer, but it's hard to imagine that not being incredibly expensive and involving a lot of earth moving and heavy equipment.

[washcycle]

They lay it all out in the feasibility study. Estimated price was $556,650.

[huskerdont]

Which is surprising considering the 500-ft boardwalk and culverts/bridges mentioned as needed, as well as the environmental analyses. But it's right there in Appendix C.

I'm ambivalent. It would be nice if more people could experience that area, which feels more like you're along a mountain stream than inside the beltway, through an improved trail, but there are challenges, as the report notes. And a northern connection is certainly needed somewhere, whether along Pimmit or elsewhere.

[happy rider]

Now that Route 1 south of Fort Belvoir has been widened, closing the gap will be welcome. However, the MV path both north and south of historic Mount Vernon are not in good shape. The path between historic Mount Vernon and Route 1 is marginal for cycling, and most riders prefer the shoulder, even though it's quite narrow for a road with a 45 mph speed limit.