TrailNation Projects

TRAIL NETWORK PROJECTS

RTC’s TrailNation initiative encompasses model trail network projects that connect across city, county, multi-county and multi-state lines. These trail networks are learning laboratories to test strategies and approaches in communities that are diverse in their geographies, constituencies and politics. Through TrailNation, RTC is working to connect nearly 12,000 miles of trail in partnership with over 300 trail organizations, advocates and local leaders.

Through these projects, RTC and our partners are demonstrating what’s possible when equitable trail networks are central to community design and what it takes to make this infrastructure essential. Learn more about each project below and how their strategies can be useful in your trail network plans.

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 Network

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 to establish the Industrial Heartland as a premier destination offering a 1,500-miles-plus multiuse trail network experience.

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

Related: These Eight TrailNation Trail Networks Are Connecting Millions of Americans

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