DDOT's final design for the Palisades trolley trail settles a fight that has run since 2019. Neighbors split over paving the old Glen Echo streetcar line or leaving it natural, and the design keeps both surfaces. An 8-foot asphalt trail will run between Galena Place and Sherier Place, and a strip of grass meant for walking will run beside it the whole way. The trail is changing in a way that tries to serve a runner on a wet morning and a dog walker who never wanted pavement. The work also starts later than DDOT said it would in February.
A Streetcar Line That Became a Footpath
The Glen Echo trolley line was built in 1896, and streetcar service ended in 1960. The informal walking trail on the old right-of-way came later, and it has never been formally built. When DDOT surveyed it for its 2019 Palisades Trolley Trail feasibility study, it described grassy and wooded stretches and packed-dirt single track, with steep spots and ongoing drainage and mud problems. In its 2025 update, the Trolley Trail Preservation Group still called the trail grassy and said volunteers were filling holes and working on drainage.
The same study listed eight ways onto the trail:
- Galena Place
- The Arizona Avenue pedestrian bridge
- Edmunds Place, by the Palisades Playground
- Chain Bridge Road
- Sherier Place
- Reservoir Road
- Q Street and Potomac Avenue
- Foxhall Road
The current project covers only part of that route. It is a 0.65-mile section from Nebraska Avenue to Galena Place, centered on the roughly 110-foot pedestrian bridge over Arizona Avenue. The far end of the corridor is a separate story. The Foundry Branch trolley trestle east of Foxhall Road is a different structure, and the 2019 study reported it had been fenced off, with passage underneath closed since 2016.
The Argument the Grass Strip Settles
Surface has been the main point of disagreement from the start. The DC Line reported in May 2019 that two-thirds of more than 800 survey respondents supported improving the path. Natural surface was still the most popular single option, at 48 percent. The Palisades Citizens Association had taken no official position and was looking for a middle ground between paving and leaving the path as it was. The same DC Line article describes opponents objecting to pavement, more bike traffic, cost and environmental change. Supporters pointed to safer connections and to people who could not use the existing route at all.
Six years later, the comments DDOT collected raised the same points. After a public meeting on September 30, 2025, DDOT logged 94 written comments. They covered how hard it is to walk on the woodchip surface, poor conditions in bad weather, conflicts between trail users, high speeds on a paved path, and the loss of natural character and green space. Commenters asked DDOT to look at a hybrid with both paved and unpaved sections.
DDOT's 90% final design deck, presented at a virtual meeting hosted by the Palisades Civic Association on February 25, 2026, shows the hybrid it chose:
| Element | Final design |
|---|---|
| Main trail | 8 feet of asphalt |
| Grass side path | 3 feet, on the north side in the February deck |
| Grass shoulder | 1 to 2 feet on the opposite side |
| East end | Stops at Sherier Place and Nebraska Avenue without connecting to the road, citing safety and ADA concerns |
| Still under study | "Luminescent stones" set into the paved surface |
DDOT did not split the trail into paved stretches and natural stretches. It runs both surfaces side by side for the full length, so a walker who wants grass underfoot keeps that option from end to end. The 3-foot width is the part to remember. DDOT's project page describes the same 8-foot asphalt with grass margins, but it flips which side gets the wider strip. Expect the final orientation to show up in the construction drawings rather than in either public summary.
The Bridge Over Arizona Avenue
The bridge drew far less disagreement than the surface. DDOT's summary records general support for rebuilding it. Some commenters asked for a second access ramp on Arizona Avenue, and others asked DDOT to limit how far the ADA-compliant access work extends. The existing structure was inspected in 2024 and rated 5, or "Fair," on a 0-to-9 scale. DDOT's plan rebuilds both the superstructure and the substructure, which means the deck and the supports underneath it.
The comments also raised two street-level items that matter as much as the bridge to anyone who walks the area:
- A HAWK signal. A HAWK is a pedestrian-activated signal. Comments split for and against it, with concerns about signal timing, congestion and cut-through traffic, and some asked for more traffic study.
- New sidewalks on Arizona Avenue and Sherier Place. Support was broad. Some commenters questioned whether the sidewalks were needed because of the effect on trees. The deck does not give a count of trees to be removed.
Two Phases, and a Schedule That Has Already Moved
DDOT split construction into two pieces, and they cover different parts of the walk:
- Phase 1 is the bridge itself, the asphalt approach trail west all the way to Galena Place, about 150 feet of trail east of the bridge, the new Arizona Avenue sidewalk, and a rebuilt ramp on the bridge's west side.
- Phase 2 is the rest of the trail east of the bridge. It includes drainage improvements where the trail meets Chain Bridge Road and requires coordination with the National Park Service.
The dates have shifted since winter. Here is the February deck next to DDOT's current project page:
| Milestone | February 2026 design deck | Current DDOT project page |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 bid advertisement | Early summer 2026 | Fall 2026 |
| Phase 1 construction start | Late 2026 | Notice to proceed in early 2027 |
| Phase 2 bid advertisement | Fall 2026, estimated | Spring 2027 |
| Phase 2 construction | Spring 2027, estimated | Notice to proceed in late 2027 |
| Overall construction end | Not listed | Spring 2028 |
The project page still lists the project's phase as "Design." As of mid-October 2026, we have not found a public procurement notice showing that the Phase 1 advertisement has gone out. Fall 2026 is DDOT's target, not a confirmed date. Each phase has moved back by roughly a season. If that continues, the stretch around Chain Bridge Road, the part that depends on the Park Service, is the most likely to shift again.
The Same Walk, Until the Fencing Goes Up
For now, the trail's surroundings are what they have been. DDOT's study names the Palisades Recreation Center at Sherier Place and Edmunds Place as the nearest recreation destination. It also counts the Palisades Library, the Palisades Farmers Market and the MacArthur Boulevard commercial corridor among the places within half a mile of the trail. Down the hill on MacArthur, Et Voilà ! still serves Belgian food at 5120 MacArthur Boulevard.
The section between Galena Place and Arizona Avenue will change first, because it is part of Phase 1. The stretch east toward Chain Bridge Road and Sherier Place will stay closest to its current form the longest, since its paving depends on the Phase 2 drainage work and Park Service coordination. That holds if DDOT's current sequence stays in place. Updates, including the recording of the February meeting once it is posted, will appear on DDOT's Arizona Avenue project page.
Public projects like this one shape how a Palisades block lives and how it gets described when a house on it comes to market. Lauren Pillsbury follows them closely for clients in Kent and the Palisades. If you own near the trail and want to know how a multi-year construction schedule might affect your plans, schedule a consultation.
