| Anacostia Tributary Trail System | |
|---|---|
 Sligo Creek at the Carroll Avenue Bridge in Takoma Park, Maryland | |
 | |
| Location | Prince George's County, Maryland, Montgomery County, Maryland |
| Season | Year-round |
| Months | Year-round |
| Website | www |
TheAnacostia Tributary Trail System (ATTS) is a unified and signed system of stream valley trails joining trails along the Anacostia tributaries ofNorthwest Branch,Northeast Branch, Indian Creek andPaint Branch with a trail along the Anacostia River, set aside and maintained by theMaryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) in the Maryland suburbs ofWashington, D.C.
ATTS is a part of theEast Coast Greenway, a 3,000-mile-long system of trails connecting Maine to Florida and theAmerican Discovery Trail, a trail system stretching from the Delaware coast to San Francisco. It is located within theAnacostia Trail Heritage Area.[1]
The system includes several hiker-biker trails, primarily: theNortheast Branch Trail, theNorthwest Branch Trail, and thePaint Branch Trail; all of which are inPrince George's County. The trail system also includes theSligo Creek Trail, which extends 8.85 miles (14.24 km)[2] and crossesPrince George's County andMontgomery County. The majority of the routes consist of protected stream valley parks established by M-NCPPC in the 1930s.[3]
The trail system converges on a zero milepost inHyattsville in an area known asPort Towns, named after the former deepwater port ofBladensburg at the head of the Anacostia River, where the varioustributaries converge. A trail along the Anacostia connects the system to Washington, DC, near theNew 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'sMetropolitan Branch Trail at Fort Totten. The trail system also constitutes part of theRhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail, with which it connects.[citation needed]
The area covered by the trails corresponds with thecoastal plain section of the Anacostiawatershed, which consists of widefloodplains that were reserved for parkland and flood-control by theArmy Corps of Engineers, using a system oflevees 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 24 miles (39 km) of paved 6–10-foot-wide (1.8–3.0 m) off-road paths.[4]
A trail system along the Anacostia and its tributaries was first envisioned in the Interior Department's 1967 "Trails For America" report.[5] 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.[6] 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.[3][7] Montgomery County's 1978 Bikeways Master Plan included trails along the Northwest Branch, Paint Branch and Sligo Creek.[8]
7 miles (11 km) of trail located between Hyattsville andAdelphi nearNew Hampshire Avenue and theCapital Beltway. The paved trail terminates at the southern terminus of theRachel Carson Environmental Area just south of the Beltway nearAdelphi Mill. The Rachel Carson Greenway extends the Northwest Branch Trail into northern Montgomery County as an unimproved hiking trail, connecting to Wheaton Regional Park.[9] 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.[7]
8.85 miles (14.24 km) of trail located predominantly in Montgomery County, ending inWheaton in the vicinity ofWheaton Regional Park. The Sligo Creek trail originates at theNorthwest Branch Trail at Chillum Community Park,Hyattsville, approximately 2.2 miles west of the zero milepost.
.jpg)
A connecting trail has been proposed to connect the Anacostia Tributary Trails system to theMetropolitan Branch rail-trail in Washington, to connect several long-distance hiker-biker trails as part of a series of coast-to-coastgreenways. The connection would terminate at the Northwest Branch Trail in the vicinity of theWest Hyattsville Metro station, approximately 1.8 miles west of the zero milepost, and would parallel theGreen Line (Washington Metro) into D.C.
2.5 miles (4 km) of trail located predominantly along the levee of the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River inRiverdale 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 toEdmonston. The trail is not far fromGreenbelt Park or theCollege 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.[10] 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.[11] 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.[12]
1 mile (1.8 km) of trail constructed aroundLake Artemesia in the vicinity ofGreenbelt. 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.[13]
The portion of trail connected to the ATTS consists of 3.7 miles (6.0 km) of signed trail between theCollege Park Airport and Museum and Cherry Hill Road inCollege Park.
A separate system of trails in the upper Paint Branch watershed has been constructed in the Montgomery County portion of Paint Branch Park.[14] The two trail systems are separated by thefall line and the Beltway.
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.[15]
The Anacostia River Trail consists of 3.1 miles (5.0 km) of trail located in northwest Prince George's County along the head of the Anacostia. The trail starts inHyattsville, 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 toBladensburg 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 theNew 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.[16] In November 2011, the 1.5 miles (2.4 km) 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 newWoodrow Wilson Bridge, was opened.[17][18] The trail was completed to the boundary in 2016 as part of astimulus project and opened on Halloween of that year.
38°57′41.2″N76°55′31″W / 38.961444°N 76.92528°W /38.961444; -76.92528
