So Last month, DDOT and the FRA presented the proposed alternatives for the replacement to the Long Bridge, which is the railroad bridge across the Potomac just downstream from the 14th Street Bridges. The 2013 Long Bridge study created several alternatives, many of which included a bike/ped path, but last spring they decided that such a facility was "out of scope" and that the bridge would focus on railroad needs with any bike facility to come afterwards. This remains a foolish decision. And you can comment on it by sending an email to [email protected] until January 16, 2018.
At last month's presentation, they stated that the feasibility of a bike-pedestrian crossing will continue to be evaluated, but that they were not screened as part of the Level 2 Screening. They add that a bike/ped crossing must
– Provide 25 feet clearance between bridges over the river
– Avoid DoD Facility
– Connect to the existing bike-pedestrian network
– Have less than 5% slope on the ramps from the crossing to the existing trails
Which they note is potentially feasible, but the three options they show are drawn to go from shore to shore and nothing more.

The Long Bridge is over 100 years old, so it's important that we make the right choices now, but this current set of options are all lacking in ambition. In fact this is the bare minimum (I guess they could end it just feet away from the shore and you could bunny-hop that last bit, but that won't appeal to some cyclists).
I've said it before, but the ideal design goes from Long Bridge Park in Arlington to Hancock Park in DC, which I admit has a lot of barriers to it, but would be worth it.
These alternatives would all connect the Mt Vernon Trail to Ohio Drive, which is good, even though it's not much of an improvement over the current sidepath on the George Mason Bridge. But for some users it would be the preferred choice.
But, below are some other connections that would make it even better.

Long Bridge Park
Arlington already plans to build a connection from Long Bridge Park to the Mt. Vernon Trail. Since this area is included even in the new, smaller project area (below), it would make sense to this all together at once. Then we can avoid a bridge crossing that ends at trail level and a Park connection that ends at trail level somewhere else. What I think we'd want is a crossing that stays at rail level all the way, with one bridge down to the trail.

The other Ohio Drive, SW
After getting to East Potomac Park and crossing the island the railroad again goes over Ohio Drive. A small ramp could easily be added that would drop it down to street level. A path to here wouldn't add much (but slightly more grade separation) but a ramp from a trail going across the channel wouldn't cost much.
The Anacostia Riverwalk Trail
This seems like a no-brainer, but by continuing a path - at rail level - across the Washington Channel and then connecting it to the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail at Maine Avenue would have a lot of utility. I suspect that most cyclists and pedestrians who cross the Mason and go south on Maine would prefer it. And it could naturally connect - at least for pedestrians to the existing adaptively reused bridge over Maine Avenue which, if memory serves me correctly, was named the Rosa Parks Bridge when it opened in 2008.
Portals
This is where it starts to get tricky, but continuing the path across Maine Avenue. There isn't room between the railroad bride and the Rosa Parks Bridge (just go with it), and I think cycling is not allowed on that bridge, so that rule would need to change. But currently, that bridge only connects to the Portals I building. A bridge from the north side of the east end of that bridge would need to be built over the existing track and then come down to rail level on space on the north side of the tracks. Currently construction (on Portals V, I think) is going on there, so I'm not sure there is space on the north side and if there is, I doubt it is just "extra" space. So, this may be where the idea dies, but if there is room, the trail could then connect to the Portals V project as well. In the image below it would have to go to the right of the tracks somewhere.

L'Enfant Plaza
If the path could make it through that part, then it gets interesting. There appears to be an unused rail line from just east of L'Enfant Plaza to the Portals. I think it used to be used to deliver coal to the building that used to be down there. Maybe the railroads use it as sidling. But if not - trail. You can see it on the left in the image below. The tracks are clearly more rusted than those to the right. Anyway, the idea of turning this into a trail is included in the DC Rail Plan, though it would likely require some expensive separation and bring a lot of opposition from CSX/VR/Amtrak. If so it could connect to the parking lot at 1000 Independence Ave SW, which is - behind a security barrier. Sigh.

Hancock Park
Here it gets harder again. There's a crossover from the unused line to the mainline just east of L'Enfant plaza, and VRE uses the part east of that to access their L'Enfant station. So the only way to continue the trail would be to do so on the extra ROW north of the tracks. Which CSX would probably not be too keen on.

But, that would get you to the very sad Hancock Park on C Street between 7th and 9th, SW where there's a Capital Bikeshare station. The park itself looks a little abandoned an unused, except for the area where CSX is obviously driving vehicles across to access the ROW at the spot above where I leaned out over a plastic fence to get this photo.
Getting to Hancock Park might be too difficult and/or too late (but DDOT should still study it to make sure) but not building a path from Long Bridge Park to the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail is almost malpractice. If you think so to, again I'll mention that comments can be provided to [email protected] until January 16, 2018.
Other links - June 2018 Presentation to NOVA Transit
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