Mount Vernon Trail
As part of U.S. Bike Route 1, the Potomac Heritage Trail and the East Coast Greenway, the MVT opened in April 1972 as a gravel path and was subsequently expanded and paved.
Separate bridle and footpaths were included in the 1890 and 1930 plans for the Mount Vernon Memorial Highway, as the George Washington Parkway was called before opening.
[5] Because the route was so popular, and because the addition of concrete barriers in some places would create space, the National Park Service, after being lobbied by local civic groups led by Ellen Pickering and Barbara Lynch, decided in 1971 to build a full trail along the side of the parkway.
Work on the first section, a compacted gravel path from the Mason Bridge and the existing Lady Bird Trail to Slaters Lane in Alexandria, started in late 1971 and it was opened on April 15, 1972.
[9] On April 21, 1973, it was extended 7.5 miles south from I-495 to Mount Vernon with a surface of compacted fly ash from the PEPCO plant in Alexandria.
The first section was 6 feet wide and cost only $27,000 to build due to the work of numerous volunteers who, after NPS bladed the base, spent every weekend for four months spreading gravel.
[11] In 1976, the City of Alexandria acquired a deed from Norfolk Southern to build a section of the trail from Pendleton Street to E. Abingdon Drive.
[13] In 1978, the Park Service built a new, $305,000, 1.8 mile paved section of trail on the west side of the parkway from Alexandria Avenue to Fort Hunt Road, a controversial project that was held up by legal action over safety and environmental concerns by neighbors.
[20] In 1982-83, a new trail route was built around the east side of the Potomac River Generating Station, on a cantilevered section between the river and the power plant, with costs paid for by the power utility because they were facing legal action for illegally storing coal on federal land.
From its northern trailhead at a parking lot in Arlington County near Mile 17 and Theodore Roosevelt Island, the MVT travels south near the Potomac River until it turns inland to pass between the parkway and the west side of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
At the southern end of Union Street, the trail becomes an off-street path that travels southward and westward, crossing under the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and passing exhibits and restrooms near Jones Point near Alexandria's south side.
After crossing over Hunting Creek and leaving Alexandria, the trail continues south through Fairfax County along the river, passing through the west sides of Belle Haven Park and Dyke Marsh and, after travelling inland, the east side of Fort Hunt Park.
The trail then continues along the river until reaching in its last mile a curving inland uphill climb that ends at Mount Vernon.
