2023 Trail Grants

At Rails to Trails Conservancy, we believe that everyone deserves access to accessible and safe places where they can walk, bike and be active outside. Trail networks provide the essential infrastructure to make this possible in hundreds of communities nationwide and have a proven, transformative impact on neighborhoods across the country.

The work to create, connect, maintain and activate these spaces is critical, yet funding needed to move these projects forward far exceeds what’s available. RTC’s trail grants program received nearly $2.9 million in requests for funding from 135 organizations in 2023 alone.

RTC was grateful to award 30 grants for a total of $348,000. The 2023 grantees will make a powerful impact in the communities they serve—bringing new infrastructure and programming to make it more equitable for people to safely walk, bike and be active outside right where they live.

Meet the 2023 Grantees

Meet the grantees of the 2023 Trail Grants Program! Projects that are part of RTC’s TrailNation™ and Great American Rail-Trail® initiatives are identified in the list.

Latino Outdoors (National): Supporting Latino Outdoors’ Vamos Outdoors programming to provide members of Latinx and other underrepresented communities with transformative outdoor experiences.

HBCUs Outside (National): Working with six Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to develop outdoor experiences and engage with the outdoor industry.

Black People Who Hike (National/St. Louis, Missouri): Growing engagement and participation along the Great Rivers Greenways, a trail network in the Greater St. Louis region.

Freshwater Land Trust (Birmingham, Alabama): Supporting land acquisition efforts for the Valley Creek Rail Trail as part of the Red Rock Trail System.

Anchorage Park Foundation (Anchorage, Alaska): Developing new signage and wayfinding, which is essential to create a welcoming and inclusive trail experience, for the Moose Loop in Anchorage, Alaska.

City of Hot Springs, Parks and Trails (Hot Springs, Arkansas): Supporting early development and conceptual designs of the Genesee & Wyoming Safety Trail, which will fill critical gaps in the city-wide trail system.

Rich City Rides (Oakland, California): Rich City Rides is hosting Fix-it-Friday and Everybody Rides programs to get more people on bikes in Richmond, California, part of TrailNation’s Bay Area Trails network.

Black Women Bike DC (Washington, D.C.): Supporting events and activities that build confidence and skills within the local community, encouraging more people to bike on trails that are part of the Capital Trail Network.

Bronzeville Trail Task Force, Inc. (Chicago, Illinois): Creating an investment strategy to develop a trail on the former Kenwood “L” embankment in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago.

Nickel Plate Trail (Noblesville, Indiana): Supporting maintenance and safety repairs to the Nickel Plate Trail, part of the Great American Rail-Trail in Indiana.

Prairie Trails Club (Starke County, Indiana): Supporting matching fund requirements for the completion of the Erie Trail, part of the Great American Rail-Trail in Indiana.

Special Olympics Kansas (Mission, Kansas): Organizing events to advance accessible trail use in the region surrounding Mission, Kansas.

City of Baltimore (Baltimore, Maryland) : Supporting the installation of trail counters to aid in analytics efforts and trail events programming throughout the city

Black People Ride Bikes (Baltimore, Maryland): Black People Ride Bike’s Fostering Unity on Wheels symposium to build support for a sustainable active transportation ecosystem across Baltimore.

West Michigan Trails (Grand Rapids, Michigan): Supporting long-term network visioning and planning efforts for this 18-county trail network in western Michigan.

Montana Trails Coalition (Clancy, Montana): Building capacity to support trail development across the state of Montana, including in partnership with tribal communities seeking to bring trails to their lands.

Powell County, MT (Deer Lodge, Montana): Supporting maintenance and surface improvements to the Old Yellowstone Trail, part of the Great American Rail-Trail.

Cross New Hampshire Adventure Trail (Littleton, New Hampshire): Creating an investment strategy to support the growing Ammonoosuc Rail Trail.

Camden Greenways, Inc. (Camden, New Jersey): Building organizational capacity in support of trail development in Camden City, part of the Circuit Trails network that connects greater Philadelphia and southern New Jersey.

NC Great Trails State (Morganton, North Carolina): Supporting the Great Trails State coalition’s trail network analysis and gap-filling efforts across the state of North Carolina.

City of Trotwood (Trotwood, Ohio): Supporting the Wolf Creek Bikeway, an important network connection along the Miami Valley Trails.

Borinquen Trail, Inc. (Bayamón, Puerto Rico): Supporting community engagement activities surrounding the development of an island-wide trail network.

Metropolitan Richmond Sports Backers (Richmond, Virginia): Advocating and engaging residents in support of the Fall Line trail network.

ForeverGreen Trails (Tacoma, Washington): Supporting coalition building efforts for the “Trail to the Mountain” project.

Wenatchee Valley TREAD (Wenatchee, Washington): Connecting trails to create the Apple Capital Recreation Loop Trail in rural Washington.

City of Weirton Board of Parks and Recreations Commissioners (Weirton, West Virginia): Supporting maintenance and surface improvements to the Panhandle Trail, part of the Great American Rail-Trail.