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Great American Rail-Trail

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Rails to Trails Magazine Winter 2025 Issue
Winter 2025 Issue

This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of Rails to Trails magazine and has been reposted here in an extended format. Subscribe to read more articles about remarkable trails while also supporting our work.

Rails to Trails Magazine Winter 2025 Issue
Winter 2025 Issue

This article was originally published in the Winter 2025 issue of Rails to Trails magazine and has been reposted here in an edited format. Subscribe to read more articles about remarkable trails while also supporting our work.

29.3 M

Available Funds in the State

2020

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Capital Crescent Trail clean-up | Photo courtesy RTC Capital Crescent Trail clean-up | Photo courtesy RTC

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Ryan Chao at Great American Rail-Trail Route Reveal Celebration | Photo by Eric Kayne/AP Images

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Hawaii's Ke Ala Hele Makalae | Photo by Bradley Pratty, County of Kauai

A View From Our 2024 Hall of Fame Inductee: Ke Ala Hele Makālae

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Magazine Plug:

This article was originally developed for the _____ issue of Rails to Trails magazine. It has been reposted here in an edited format. Subscribe to read more articles about remarkable rail-trails and trail networks while also supporting our work. Have comments on this article? Email the magazine.

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Noa Banayan's bike at the Capitol | Photo by Noa Banayan
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Noa Banayan's bike at the Capitol | Photo by Noa Banayan
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David Burwell and Peter Harnik, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy co-founders | Photo by Robert Trippet

Since RTC’s inception in 1986, we have helped to create a powerful national movement that is connecting communities from coast to coast.

Learn About RTC’s History

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Since RTC’s inception in 1986, we have helped to create a powerful national movement that is connecting communities from coast to coast.

David Burwell and Peter Harnik, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy co-founders | Photo by Robert Trippet

Learn About RTC’s History

Great American Rail-Trail

The Great American Rail-Trail® is the nation’s first cross-country multiuse trail, stretching more than 3,700 miles between Washington, D.C., and Washington State.

DC’s Capital Crescent Trail | Photo by Hung Tran

Learn About Great American Rail-Trail

Great American Rail-Trail

The nation’s first cross-country multiuse trail, the route will be entirely bikeable and walkable across 3,700+ miles between Washington, D.C., and Washington State.

Pennsylvania’s Great Allegheny Passage (gaptrail.org) | Photo by Milo Bateman

Learn more about the Great American

Baltimore Greenway Trails Network

The Baltimore Greenway Trails Network is a vision for a 35-mile world-class network of urban trails that will link together the diverse neighborhoods, cultural amenities and outdoor resources of Baltimore City.

Photo by Side A Photography

Learn more about the network

Bay Area Trails Collaborative

The vision of the award-winning Bay Area Trails Collaborative is to develop a 2,604-mile regional trail network that will connect the San Francisco Bay Area—its trails, people and places—in innovative new ways.

California’s San Francisco Bay Trail | Photo by Cindy Barks

Learn more about the network

Capital Trails Coalition

The Capital Trails Coalition (CTC) footprint currently includes more than 800 miles of existing and planned trails and connections in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia.

DC’s Metropolitan Branch Trail | Photo by India Kea

Learn more about the network

Circuit Trails

The Circuit Trails is a regional urban trail network in Greater Philadelphia and New Jersey. The project will eventually encompass 800 miles of trails on both sides of the Delaware River.

Schuylkill River Trail | Photo by Thom Carroll Photography

Learn more about the Circuit

Caracara Trails

In the Lower Rio Grande Valley in Texas, the Caracara Trails is a vision for a 428-mile trail network.

Tour of Texas’ Caracara Trails | Photo by John Faulk, Frontera Media

Learn more about the network

Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition

The vision of the Industrial Heartland Trails Coalition (IHTC) is a 1,500-mile-plus trail network that will span Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York.

Cleveland Foundation Centennial Lake Link Trail, part of the IHTC | Photo by Jason Cohn

Learn more about IHTC

Miami LOOP

The Miami LOOP is a 225-mile trail vision to expand transportation options, make biking and walking safer and more equitable, strengthen the regional economy, reduce the area’s carbon footprint, and improve health and wellness across Miami-Dade County.

Atlantic Greenway South Beach Trail, part of the Miami LOOP | Photo by Lee Smith

Learn more about the network

New England Rail-Trail Network

RTC is working with trail advocates and transportation leaders from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont to advance a plan for connecting the region’s 1,000 miles of open trail.

Vermont’s Lamoille Valley Rail Trail | Photo by TrailLink user bobwhite

Learn more about the network

Route of the Badger

The Route of the Badger offers a vision of healthy, thriving communities in Southeast Wisconsin centered around a world-class, 700-miles-plus regional trail system.

Wisconsin’s Oak Leaf Trail | Photo by Front Room Photography

Learn about the Route of the Badger

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