Anacostia Tributary Trail System
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The Anacostia Tributary Trail System (ATTS) is a unified and signed system of stream valley trails joining trails along the Anacostia tributaries of Northwest Branch, Northeast Branch, Indian Creek and
Paint Branch Paint Branch is a tributaryU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 stream of the Anacostia River that flows Southeastwards through Montgomery County and Princ ...
with a trail along the Anacostia River, set aside and maintained by the
Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission The Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) is a bi-county agency that administers parks and planning in Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland. History The commission was formed in 1927 by the Maryland G ...
(M-NCPPC) in the Maryland suburbs of
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
ATTS is a part of the
East Coast Greenway The East Coast Greenway is a pedestrian and bicycle route between Maine and Florida along the East Coast of the United States. The nonprofit East Coast Greenway Alliance was created in 1991 with the goal to use the entire route with off-road, s ...
, a 3,000-mile-long system of trails connecting Maine to Florida and the
American Discovery Trail The American Discovery Trail is a system of recreational trails and roads that collectively form a coast-to-coast hiking and biking trail across the mid-tier of the United States. Horses can also be ridden on most of this trail. The coastal tr ...
, a trail system stretching from the Delaware coast to San Francisco. It is located within the Anacostia Trail Heritage Area.


Description

The system includes several hiker-biker trails, primarily: the Northeast Branch Trail, the Northwest Branch Trail, and the Paint Branch Trail; all of which are in
Prince George's County Prince George's County (often shortened to PG County or PG) is located in the U.S. state of Maryland bordering the eastern portion of Washington, D.C. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 967,201, making it the second-most populous ...
. The trail system also includes the
Sligo Creek Trail Sligo Creek Trail is a paved hiker-biker trail running along Sligo Creek in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Most of the trail passes through tree-filled parkland. The trail and surrounding park is a popular place for locals to jog, walk, bicyc ...
, which extends and crosses
Prince George's County Prince George's County (often shortened to PG County or PG) is located in the U.S. state of Maryland bordering the eastern portion of Washington, D.C. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the population was 967,201, making it the second-most populous ...
and Montgomery County. The majority of the routes consist of protected stream valley parks established by M-NCPPC in the 1930s. The trail system converges on a zero milepost in Hyattsville in an area known as ''Port Towns'', named after the former deepwater port of Bladensburg at the head of the Anacostia River, where the various
tributaries A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream ('' main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which the ...
converge. A trail along the Anacostia connects the system to Washington, DC, near the New York Avenue Bridge where it continues as the Anacostia River Trail. And a trail connector from the West Hyattsville Metro Station will eventually connect it with DC's
Metropolitan Branch Trail The Metropolitan Branch Trail (informally, the Met Branch Trail) is a partially-built American rail trail between the transit center in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Union Station in the District of Columbia. When completed, it will run for : one ...
at Fort Totten. The trail system also constitutes part of the
Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail The Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail (formerly known as the ''College Park Trolley Trail'') is a rail trail within the cities of College Park, Maryland, College Park, Riverdale Park, Maryland, Riverdale Park, and Hyattsville, Maryland, Hyattsv ...
, with which it connects. The area covered by the trails corresponds with the
coastal plain A coastal plain (also coastal plains, coastal lowland, coastal lowlands) is an area of flat, low-lying land adjacent to a sea coast. A fall line commonly marks the border between a coastal plain and an upland area. Formation Coastal plains can f ...
section of the Anacostia
watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...
, which consists of wide
floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river. Floodplains stretch from the banks of a river channel to the base of the enclosing valley, and experience flooding during periods of high Discharge (hydrolog ...
s that were reserved for parkland and flood-control by the Army Corps of Engineers, using a system of
levee A levee ( or ), dike (American English), dyke (British English; see American and British English spelling differences#Miscellaneous spelling differences, spelling differences), embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is an elevated ridge, natural ...
s and concrete embankments upon which the trails were initially built. In conjunction with the restoration of natural habitat along the adjoining stream valleys in the 1990s, M-NCPPC and Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation connected and upgraded the stream valley trails into a consistent network of approximately of paved off-road paths. A trail system along the Anacostia and its tributaries was first envisioned in the Interior Department's 1967 "Trails For America" report. In 1973, The Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPP) formed a Trails Citizen's Advisory Council created a more formal plan for trails and identified ones including those along the tributaries, that were ready for construction. Construction started in the mid-1970's, usually as a side-project for drainage and sewage projects and by 1977 there were trails along Paint Branch, the Northeast Branch and the Northwest Branch with more construction underway. Montgomery County's 1978 Bikeways Master Plan included trails along the Northwest Branch, Paint Branch and Sligo Creek.


Northwest Branch Trail

7 miles (11 km) of trail located between Hyattsville and Adelphi near
New Hampshire Avenue New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 ** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, 1995 * "New" (Daya song), 2017 * "New" (No Doubt song), 1 ...
and the
Capital Beltway The Capital Beltway, designated as Interstate 495 (I-495) for its entire length, is an List of auxiliary Interstate Highways, auxiliary Interstate Highway in the Washington metropolitan area. The Ring road, beltway encircles Washington, D.C., ...
. The paved trail terminates at the southern terminus of the Rachel Carson Environmental Area just south of the Beltway near Adelphi Mill. The Rachel Carson Greenway extends the Northwest Branch Trail into northern Montgomery County as an unimproved hiking trail, connecting to Wheaton Regional Park. The first 3/4 mile of trail, between Riggs Road and the Montgomery County line, was completed by May 1977 and another 5 1/4 miles were still under construction.


Sligo Creek Trail

of trail located predominantly in Montgomery County, ending in Wheaton in the vicinity of Wheaton Regional Park. The Sligo Creek trail originates at the Northwest Branch Trail at Chillum Community Park, Hyattsville, approximately 2.2 miles west of the zero milepost.


Metropolitan Branch trail connector

A connecting trail has been proposed to connect the Anacostia Tributary Trails system to the Metropolitan Branch rail-trail in Washington, to connect several long-distance hiker-biker trails as part of a series of coast-to-coast
greenways Greenway or Greenways may refer to: * Greenway (landscape), a linear park focused on a trail or bike path * Another term for bicycle boulevards in some jurisdictions * European Greenways Association, an association for sustainable transport Peopl ...
. The connection would terminate at the Northwest Branch Trail in the vicinity of the West Hyattsville Metro station, approximately 1.8 miles west of the zero milepost, and would parallel the
Green Line (Washington Metro) The Green Line is a rapid transit line of the Washington Metro system, consisting of 21 metro station, stations in Washington, D.C., and Prince George's County, Maryland, Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The Green Line runs fro ...
into D.C.


Northeast Branch Trail

2.5 miles (4 km) of trail located predominantly along the levee of the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River in Riverdale Park. The trail's zero milepost is in Hyattsville, just north of the confluence of the Northeast and Northwest Branches of the Anacostia. It continues up to the levee to Edmonston. The trail is not far from
Greenbelt Park Greenbelt Park is a park in Greenbelt, Maryland, that is managed by the National Park Service as part of National Capital Parks East. The forested park lies approximately 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Washington, D.C., and is situated just ...
or the College Park Metro station. The first 1.5 miles of the Northeast Branch from Riverdale Road to Calvert Road (renamed Campus Drive) in Riverdale (now College Park) opened in 1977 and was originally named the Denis Wolf Trail by M-NCPPC. It was named for Wolf, a cyclist killed by a drunk driver in 1974, after Wolf's family raised $3,000 for the trail. The first trail section, which eventually extended for about 5 miles south to Decatur Street, was built as part of the Northeast Branch Relief Sewer project. Eventually, the Denis Wolf trail was absorbed into the Northeast Branch Trail, but a Denis Wolf Rest Stop, built in 1977 still exists just south of Campus Drive.


Indian Creek Trail

1 mile (1.8 km) of trail constructed around
Lake Artemesia Lake Artemesia is an artificial lake in Prince George's County, Maryland, located within the Lake Artemesia Natural Area in College Park and Berwyn Heights. The lake covers an area of , and the surrounding natural area is administered by Maryl ...
in the vicinity of
Greenbelt A green belt or greenbelt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or gree ...
. The Northeast Branch Trail terminates at the zero milepost of the Paint Branch Trail, where this trail and several other trails split off towards Greenbelt Park. Lake Artemesia Park and the trails around it opened on July 23, 1992. Sand, soil and gravel were needed to construct Metro's Green Line and those materials were taken from the land the park sits on now, with the removal creating the basin for the lakes.


Paint Branch Trail

The portion of trail connected to the ATTS consists of of signed trail between the College Park Airport and Museum and Cherry Hill Road in College Park. A separate system of trails in the upper Paint Branch watershed has been constructed in the Montgomery County portion of Paint Branch Park. The two trail systems are separated by the
fall line A fall line (or fall zone) is the area where an upland region and a coastal plain meet and is noticeable especially the place rivers cross it, with resulting rapids or waterfalls. The uplands are relatively hard crystalline basement rock, and the ...
and the Beltway.


Little Paint Branch Trail

In 2018-19, the M-NCPPC extended the Little Paint Branch Trail 2.1 miles from its terminus at the Beltsville Community Center to Cherry Hill Road where it connected to the Paint Branch Trail becoming an extension of the ATTS.


Anacostia River Trail

The Anacostia River Trail consists of of trail located in northwest Prince George's County along the head of the Anacostia. The trail starts in Hyattsville, southeast of the intersection of Charles Armentrout Drive and Baltimore Avenue along the Northeast Branch. From there it follows the Northeast Branch to the head of the Anacostia River and follows that south where it splits in two at the trail bridge over the Anacostia to Bladensburg Waterfront Park. The west side trail ends at Colmar Manor Community Park and the east side trail ends at the District boundary just north of the New York Avenue Bridge where it continues as DC's Anacostia River Trail. The east side trail from Colmar Manor, through Cottage City to Hyattsville was built in the late 1990's. In 2005, the trail bridge linking Bladensburg and Colmar Manor was completed. In November 2011, the section of the west side trail from the waterfront park to an unnamed tributary just north of the District boundary, built in part as environmental mitigation for the new
Woodrow Wilson Bridge The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, also known as the Woodrow Wilson Bridge or the Wilson Bridge, is a bascule bridge that spans the Potomac River between Alexandria, Virginia and Oxon Hill, Maryland in Prince George's County, Maryland. The ...
, was opened. The trail was completed to the boundary in 2016 as part of a stimulus project and opened on Halloween of that year.


See also

*
Anacostia River The Anacostia River is a river in the Mid-Atlantic states, Mid Atlantic region of the United States. It flows from Prince George's County, Maryland, Prince George's County in Maryland into Washington, D.C., where it joins with the Washington Ch ...
** Northwest Branch **
Paint Branch Paint Branch is a tributaryU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 stream of the Anacostia River that flows Southeastwards through Montgomery County and Princ ...
*
Sligo Creek Sligo Creek is a free-flowing tributary of the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River in Maryland. (The Anacostia, in turn, feeds into the Potomac River and eventually empties into the Atlantic Ocean via Chesapeake Bay.) The creek is approxima ...
**
Sligo Creek Trail Sligo Creek Trail is a paved hiker-biker trail running along Sligo Creek in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. Most of the trail passes through tree-filled parkland. The trail and surrounding park is a popular place for locals to jog, walk, bicyc ...
*
Metropolitan Branch Trail The Metropolitan Branch Trail (informally, the Met Branch Trail) is a partially-built American rail trail between the transit center in Silver Spring, Maryland, and Union Station in the District of Columbia. When completed, it will run for : one ...
*
Hyattsville, Maryland Hyattsville is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. It is an urban suburb of Washington, D.C. The population was 21,187 at the 2020 United States census. History Before Europeans reached the area, the upper Anacostia ...


References


Further reading

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External links


Anacostia Tributaries Trail System
{{coord, 38, 57, 41.2, N, 76, 55, 31, W, display=title Bike paths in Maryland East Coast Greenway Hiking trails in Maryland Protected areas of Prince George's County, Maryland Protected areas of Montgomery County, Maryland