[citation needed] The area covered by the trails corresponds with the coastal plain section of the Anacostia watershed, which consists of wide floodplains that were reserved for parkland and flood-control by the Army Corps of Engineers, using a system of levees and concrete embankments upon which the trails were initially built.

In conjunction with the restoration of natural habitat along the adjoining stream valleys in the 1990s, M-NCPPC and Prince George's County Department of Parks and Recreation connected and upgraded the stream valley trails into a consistent network of approximately 24 miles (39 km) of paved 6–10-foot-wide (1.8–3.0 m) off-road paths.

The paved trail terminates at the southern terminus of the Rachel Carson Environmental Area just south of the Beltway near Adelphi Mill.

The connection would terminate at the Northwest Branch Trail in the vicinity of the West Hyattsville Metro station, approximately 1.8 miles west of the zero milepost, and would parallel the Green Line (Washington Metro) into D.C. 2.5 miles (4 km) of trail located predominantly along the levee of the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River in Riverdale Park.

The first trail section, which eventually extended for about 5 miles south to Decatur Street, was built as part of the Northeast Branch Relief Sewer project.

Sand, soil and gravel were needed to construct Metro's Green Line and those materials were taken from the land the park sits on now, with the removal creating the basin for the lakes.

The trail starts in Hyattsville, southeast of the intersection of Charles Armentrout Drive and Blatimore Avenue along the Northeast Branch.

The east side trail from Colmar Manor, through Cottage City to Hyattsville was built in the late 1990's.

[16] In November 2011, the 1.5 miles (2.4 km) section of the west side trail from the waterfront park to an unnamed tributary just north of the District boundary, built in part as environmental mitigation for the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, was opened.