CWL 2018 #8 Germantown to Middleton Bridge

This is another long one. It's more than 80 miles from Germantown, around DC, across Prince George's County and down to the Morgantown Generating Station next to the Middleton Bridge (formerly Nice). Most of the way, it's pretty far out from DC too far to connect with any existing trails, but it intersects with the WB&A trail and 14 other corridors on the way, many of which are part of this series.  Unlike other corridors on this list, there is an existing plan to put a trail on a several miles of this corridor.

Montgomery County

On the west end, the trail starts at the recently opened PEPCO trail (Utility Corridor #1 in the plan and #7 on this list) near South Germantown Recreation Park in Montgomery County. The new Montgomery County Bike Plan places a trail on the entire corridor in the county from there to the Prince George's County line. The plan calls this "Utility Corridor #2". This alone would be a ~24 mile long trail. It was pass to the north of Gaithersburg and end just north of Burtonsville. 

Prince George's County

In PGC it crosses through more developed areas, a trail would have to cross I-95, the Route 1 corridor, the BW Parkway and the Patuxent Research Refuge. These are difficult, but not impossible barriers. Then it crosses through Bowie to the WB&A Trail and south to within a short distance of Six Flags and Andrews Air Force Base. This part would not be relatively east to build on, even though it has a few barriers like US-50 and Pennsylvania Avenue. South of Pennsylvania Avenue, the corridor crosses Rosaryville State Park and Cedarville State Forest before leaving the county. There is no technical reason why a trail can't be built the whole way across the county on the corridor, a PG Cross-County Trail if you will. It would be amazing. 

Charles County

Charles County is out of my usual service area, but the opportunity to take a trail right to the base of the Middleton Bridge, which should get a bike-ped crossing over the Potomac when rebuilt, is too appealing to pass on. In Charles, the corridor travels to the east of the more developed parts like Waldorf which increases it's ease of construction but would need connectors to improve its utility. A connection to the Indian Head Rail Trail, 3 miles away, would be key, for example. The corridor does pass over SOME farm land, but there is room to easily go around that. The corridor defines the border of the Zekiah Swamp Natural Environment Area (which might mean boardwalks) and the Allen Fresh Natural Area and then past Newburg to the bridge. Here again there is not a lot of built on land that would prevent a trail. 

It's not impossible to believe that a trail could be built across all three counties, connecting to a new Potomac River Crossing on one end, a recently built and soon to be expanded bridge on the other; and to a major trail and more than a dozen other power corridors along the way. I wouldn't count on making the trip anytime soon, but if it were done it would be spectacular. 

Comments

[Purple Eagle]

I found this one on the aerial view . . it also passes through Watkins Mill Regional Park, which could be a selling point. Also it has to cross the Amtrak Penn line near Bowie State; and further south it passes through the PG County landfill. Landfill is supposed to be closed within a few years so maybe there will be a push to convert it to recreational space at some point. There's an electrical substation in the ROW near Bowie State.