Cyclists with ambitious goals will be stoked to hear about the creation of a mega bike trail that lets you ride across the United States. The trail will be known as the Great American Rail-Trail, and it will connect nearly 3,700 miles of rail-trail and other multi-use trails to form a path across the country from Washington, D.C. to Washington State.
The route travels through 12 states and uses 1,900 miles of existing trails with more than 1,700 miles of “trail gaps”—trails that need to be developed to fully connect the route. Fifty-two percent of the path is already complete and available for public use. The largest challenge appears to be the lack of trails in Wyoming, where the preferred route crosses the state but there are few trails or planned segments. Other large sections that need to be built are in Nebraska and Montana.
Building the full trail will likely take at least a decade or two, but some sections could come online fairly quickly. If you want to support the creation of this cross-country bike trail, you can do that right here.
