Rhode Island Ave Trolley Trail

The Rhode Island Avenue Trolley Trail preserves one of the last remnants of the streetcar line that ran from the Treasury Building in downtown Washington, D.C. to Laurel, and riders can again travel from Hyattsville to Branchville on the same route used daily by the Number 82 streetcar carrying commuters and shoppers downtown. The region has a long history of transportation innovation: U.S. Route 1 was established before 1794 as a post road for carrying mail, and in 1835 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad built the Washington Branch into D.C., a route still used daily by freight and commuter trains. Streetcar service began in 1897 when the Maryland and Washington Railway ran cars from Florida and New York Ave NE in Mount Rainier, and mergers in 1898 created the City and Suburban Railway, which extended service to Riverdale by 1899 and Berwyn by 1900. A financially weak Berwyn and Laurel Electric Railroad built the final segment into Laurel and provided shuttle service back to Berwyn, and after more mergers the first through car service from Washington to Laurel began in 1902 by way of Mount Rainier, Brentwood, North Brentwood, Hyattsville, Riverdale Park, College Park, Berwyn, Branchville, and Beltsville. Operations later continued under the names Washington Railway and Electric Company, Capital Transit Company, and D.C. Transit System. Streetcars ran on the Washington to Branchville line until 1958 and ended region-wide by 1962. The former line then remained a utility right-of-way until the first major steps to convert the alignment into a trail began in the late 1990s in College Park, with the final portions between Charles Armentrout Drive and Farragut Street in Hyattsville and Branchville Road and Greenbelt Road in College Park scheduled for completion before 2020.

Riverdale Park, Maryland · United States