Capital Crescent Trail

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The Arizona Avenue Railway Bridge, part of the Capital Crescent Trail

The Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) is an 11-mile (18 km) long, shared-use rail trail that runs from Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Silver Spring, Maryland.

It is the most heavily used rail trail in the United States and is used by more than 1 million walkers, joggers, bikers, and rollerbladers each year. In 2005, it was named one of the "21 great places that show how transportation can enliven a community" by The Project for Public Spaces [1]

The trail runs on the abandoned right-of-way of the Georgetown Branch rail line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Trains stopped running in 1985. In 1988, the Montgomery County Government purchased the right-of-way from the D.C. line to Silver Spring under the National Trails System Act of 1968. In 1990, following appropriations by the United States Congress in 1989 and 1990, the National Park Service purchased about 4.3 miles (6.9 km) of right-of-way in the District of Columbia from Georgetown to the D.C./Maryland boundary and developed the trail as a component of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. The 7-mile (11 km) paved section of the Capital Crescent Trail from Georgetown to Bethesda was built and formally dedicated in December 1996.

The trail passes over three trestles and through two tunnels. From south to north, these are the Arizona Avenue Railway Bridge, Dalecarlia Bridge, Dalecarlia Tunnel, Wisconsin Avenue Tunnel and the Rock Creek Trestle.

In June 2000, Montgomery County committed $1.3 million to repair the Rock Creek Trestle, which had been damaged by arson and open it for trail use. The trestle was dedicated for trail use on May 31, 2003. ^[1]

From Bethesda to Stewart Avenue in Rosemary Hills, the trail is open but has an unpaved, crushed stone surface. The final segment to the Silver Spring, MD Metro Station has yet to be built.