History
The Metropolitan Branch Trail was first conceived in 1988, by Patrick Hare, of the Brookland neighborhood. Working with the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA) and Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, in 1989, Hare organized a group of eleven area cyclists to conduct an exploratory walk/ride. Soon after the Coalition for the Metropolitan Branch Trail was formed to explore and promote the potential for a multi-use trail. The Metropolitan Branch Trail entered the DC Comprehensive Plan in the early 1990s and in 1997 the DC Department of Public Works (DCDPW) completed an engineering feasibility study that proved it would be possible.
In 1998 Congress allocated $8.5 million in demonstration project funding to the District for the trail through the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), the six-year federal transportation funding bill. In 1999 WABA published a concept plan for the trail that envisioned creation of a large urban park and greenway along the abandoned, and as yet undeveloped, CSX Transportation property; and later that year a groundbreaking ceremony was held at the Brookland-Catholic University Metro station where a one-mile (1.6 km) portion of the trail had been built along McCormack Road as a part of routine street reconstruction in 1998. Another short, on-road trail section was built along First Street NE from Union Station in 2000.
With funding secured, planning began in earnest. In April 2001, WABA published a study describing the necessary acquisitions for the trail. In 2002, when the city and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) agreed to construct a new Metro station at New York and Florida Avenues, trail advocates and city staff negotiated for WMATA to construct a portion of the trail as a part of the station construction project. Around the same time the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) completed a Feasibility Study and Concept Plan for one mile of the MBT between DC and Silver Spring. In 2003, the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) hired a special project manager for the trail, prepared a Takoma Alignment Study and initiated development of the comprehensive concept plan, which was completed in 2005.
When the New York Ave–Florida Ave–Gallaudet University Metro station (to be renamed NoMa – Gallaudet University with the June 2012 edition of the official Metro map) opened in November 2004, it included about 2,000 feet (610 m) of trail on a raised structure. In the same year, a half mile of trail was built in Takoma Park, Maryland from the District line to Montgomery College. It was later paved in January 2006. On July 28, 2004 a bridge was built from the Takoma Park section over the railroad tracks to Jessup Blair Park in Silver Spring. Stairs from the New York Avenue Metro Station section to L Street NE, a trail under the tracks along L Street NE and a one block portion along 2nd Street NE were completed in the spring of 2008. In May 2010, a new 1.5 mile segment from New York Avenue to Franklin Street opened.
In February 2013, a section opened from Colesville Road to Ripley Street in Silver Spring, MD opened as part of the Silver Spring Transit Center. .
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