How long has it been since you walked the Glover-Archbold Trail from Wesley Heights all the way to the river without leaving the woods? For anyone who started using the park after 2016, the answer is never. One structure has kept that stretch closed: the Foundry Branch streetcar trestle near Canal Road, the last streetcar bridge left in the District. As of August 25, 2026, nobody is arguing over the bridge's future anymore. The trail stays closed until the bridge comes down, and that still depends on a Park Service permit and a demolition date, neither of which has been announced.
The National Park Service project page posted an update on October 14. It says the agency has published the "Final Signed Memorandum of Agreement Foundry Branch Trestle August 25 2026." That signature ends a process that went through a preservation board, two Mayor's Agent rulings, an appeals court and two city budgets. Only two steps are left: issuing the permit and setting a schedule.
Ten years, one bridge
The trestle is older than most of the houses near it. It was built in 1896 for the Washington and Great Falls Electric Railway Company and carried the streetcar line between Georgetown and Glen Echo, Maryland. Service ended in 1960, and D.C. Transit took over the idle bridge that year. In 1997, a litigation settlement transferred it to WMATA, which still owns it today. According to the signed agreement, WMATA received the two lots directly beneath the trestle along with it. Glover-Archbold Park surrounds the site on every side, and it is federal parkland managed by Rock Creek Park. That leaves WMATA owning a bridge it can't take down without the Park Service's permission to bring equipment across the park.
Here is the record Ghosts of DC laid out on October 20, along with the Park Service's own project history:
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2014 | WMATA studies the trestle and finds it structurally unsound |
| 2016 | The Park Service learns of the findings and closes the trail beneath it |
| 2018 | DC's Historic Preservation Review Board rules that WMATA's raze application should be denied |
| 2019 | A DDOT inspection reports that vegetation in the steel "is providing the only means of support" at the main supports |
| January 2020 | DDOT declines to rehabilitate, citing cost and constructability; the rough estimate for the preferred rebuild was about $2.75 million |
| September 23, 2020 | The Mayor's Agent clears the raze permit |
| September 15, 2022 | The DC Court of Appeals vacates that approval after an appeal by the DC Preservation League |
| May 10, 2023 | The Mayor's Agent clears the permit again |
| FY 2024 / FY 2025 | $250,000 for planning is set aside, then cut and redirected in the final FY 2025 budget |
| April 21, 2025 | NPS posts the draft agreement for public comment |
| July 15, 2026 | NPS releases the final agreement |
| August 25, 2026 | The agreement is signed |
Several versions of the bridge's future were on the table at one point or another. Ghosts of DC reports that the neighborhood associations in the Palisades, Foxhall Village and Georgetown supported turning the trestle into a walking and biking bridge. It would have tied Georgetown to Foxhall and, eventually, to a trail along the old trolley right-of-way through the Palisades. In 2024 the DC Preservation League made another public push to save it, and PoPville carried that campaign. The 2019 inspection is the part that explains why demolition won. A bridge held up by the plants growing through it can't carry people.
What the signed agreement trades
WMATA's first proposal was to raze the bridge "and all associated infrastructure, including the concrete abutments," and restore the site to naturalistic conditions. The final agreement keeps some of that. According to the Park Service and Ghosts of DC, the mitigation it commits to is:
- Formal documentation of the bridge to Historic American Engineering Record standards, with large-format photographs and a short written history
- Interpretive signage about the trestle
- Preservation of the low concrete footers, which will mark where the bridge stood
- Landscape work and replanting with native vegetation
- Reopening the Glover-Archbold trail segment that passes under the bridge
The footers are the part neighbors will actually see. The steel goes, and the people walking the reopened trail will pass a row of concrete markers showing where the Glen Echo trolley once crossed the valley. The Park Service calls the agreement legally binding. It records the agency's compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and was drafted in response to WMATA's application for a Special Use Permit to work on federal parkland.
Rock Creek Park superintendent Brian Joyner explained the decision in the July release, which PoPville republished:
"Losing a historic structure like the trestle bridge is not something we take lightly. The NPS and its partners carefully explored every option to determine whether it could be safely restored, and removing the bridge is the only responsible path forward to protect visitors."
What still has no date
The order of steps is public, but the schedule isn't. The Park Service said in July that it would issue WMATA the Special Use Permit "when the agreement is finalized." That permit lets WMATA stage equipment on parkland, take down the trestle and do the restoration work that reopens the trail. The agreement is now signed, but the project page's most recent update covers only the signed document. It doesn't mention a permit, a contractor or a start date. On October 20, Ghosts of DC wrote that it had not seen a demolition date announced as of mid-October 2026.
So the closure is still in place this week. The Rock Creek Park alerts page, last updated September 18, 2026, lists the southern end of the Glover Archbold Trail as under emergency closure "until further notice due to aerial hazards." The Park Service's detour page says where those hazards come from: "caused by the trestle bridge." The closure and the bridge are one problem, so taking down the bridge is what reopens the trail.
Walking it from Wesley Heights this fall
The Park Service describes the Glover-Archbold Trail as a rugged dirt footpath, not a bike trail. It runs nearly 2.5 miles north to south, from Van Ness Street to the Foundry Branch Park trail. Wesley Heights sits along its middle, and you can walk most of it today. The trouble is the last stretch.
- Get on near home. A 2024 route guide from Coach Kip Running lists stair access at Massachusetts, Cathedral and New Mexico Avenues. The Birder's Guide to Maryland and DC adds Massachusetts Avenue near Macomb Street, Garfield Street near Glover Drive, and 44th Street at Dexter and at Reservoir Road. Its list dates to 2019, so check the signs at each entrance. A park listing on NPPlan also lists an entrance on Garfield Street near New Mexico Avenue.
- Head south and cross Reservoir Road at the marked crosswalk.
- Leave the woods where the detour signs tell you to. The current alert sends walkers along Foxhall Road, 44th Street and P Street. The detour page's turn-by-turn directions, last updated in 2022, use 45th Street instead. Southbound, they take you down an unnamed dirt trail to an embankment, along an alley behind a row of houses to the dead end of P Street, and then on to Foxhall Road. The two Park Service pages name different streets, so follow the signs posted on the ground.
- Cross under Canal Road to the towpath. The Park Service's Multi-Park Loop, updated in March 2026, picks it up at M Street and Canal Road. Turn left, follow the sidewalk to a sharp turn on your left, and take the tunnel under Canal Road onto the C&O Canal towpath.
The detour adds street walking, so some people stay in the trees and loop instead. The Whitehaven Trail branches off Glover-Archbold toward Dumbarton Oaks Park and Rock Creek Park. Heading west, the Wesley Heights Trail connects the Glover-Archbold network to Battery Kemble, and Trail Run Project maps that connector at 0.8 mile. The same 2024 route guide warns that parts of the Wesley Heights Park trails are poorly maintained and include a steep climb.
The view from Canal Road
You can see the bridge itself, but it sits behind a chain-link fence in the park. Ghosts of DC suggests going to see it from Canal Road while it's still there. The steel has stood over the Foundry Branch valley for 130 years. Once WMATA puts out a schedule, all that will be left above ground are the concrete footers and the signage. Until then, the Rock Creek Park alerts page is where an updated closure notice will appear first.
The Mike Aubrey Group follows the projects that change how Wesley Heights works day to day, from trail closures to the agreements that end them. If you'd like to know how changes in the park bordering your street might matter for your home, get in touch.
