Potomac Heritage Trail Association (PHTA)
OUTREACH
- Organized a four-day, 100-mile hike across Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, VA from Brunswick, MD, along mostly unpaved, low traffic roads to Leesburg, VA (which could be an interim Potomac Heritage Trail route), then via the PHT to Great Falls and the Fairfax Cross-County Trail to Occoquan. The event will be held twice in 2019 (around Memorial Day and Veterans Day weekends), extended to cross a third count (Prince William) with three major new boardwalks being completed in 2019.
PROTECTION
- PHTA volunteers, with the support of numerous Federal, State, and local elected representatives, helped secure a Transportation Alternatives Program grant of $60,000 to do a feasibility study of a critical missing link for the PHT in southern Fairfax County, VA. This route will pass under busy Interstate 95 and cross the CSX main east coast railway. It will enable commuters and bicyclists to access Lorton’s Virginia Railway Express station from neighborhoods that have no easy access now.
CAPACITY
- As part of REI Co-Op’s $24,000 awards to each of the national scenic trails, PHTA proposed a study of an approximately 300-foot boardwalk across Powells Creek near Dumfries, VA. The boardwalk would remove a long, circuitous section of the trail that is on busy roads and instead route it through an estuary and a scenic stream valley.
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The Neabsco Boardwalk snakes its way across 3/4 miles of estuary, from Blackburn Road towards Metz Wetlands, on the PHT. Photo Credit: PHTA.
