Start on the Glover-Archbold Trail at Van Ness Street, walk south toward the Potomac, and the woods eventually send you back to the sidewalk. That has been true since 2016. The trail stops short of Canal Road at a rusting streetcar bridge, and the route to the C&O Canal towpath runs along residential streets.

That changed on paper this month. The National Park Service posted the final signed agreement for tearing down the Foundry Branch trestle on its project page on October 14, 2026. Whether the trail reopens is now decided. When it reopens depends on a chain of steps that has only just begun, and the agreement itself never names a date.

The Walk South, As It Stands This Fall

The National Park Service describes the main trail as nearly 2.5 miles of rugged dirt footpath from Van Ness Street NW to the Foundry Branch Park trail, which connects to the C&O Canal towpath. Bikes are not allowed, major streets cross the park, and there is no central parking lot. In practice you start from a street edge, and Glover Park has plenty of them. The Glover Park Citizens' Association's February 2025 Gazette lists these informal access points:

• 42nd Street at Davis Place
• 42nd Street at Beecher Street
• 42nd Street near W Street
• Garfield Street at Glover Drive
• 39th Street at W Street, through Whitehaven Park
• Van Ness Street at 40th Place, and 40th Place at Upton Street

The same newsletter reports that the Whitehaven Trail links into Glover-Archbold. It also reports that a partnership with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, paid for with an ANC 3B grant, restored a stretch of the Whitehaven Trail leading into the park.

Heading north or into the middle of the park, the trail works as intended. Heading south, it runs into the closure. Rock Creek Park's alerts page, last updated September 18, 2026, still lists the southern end of the trail under "an emergency closure until further notice due to aerial hazards." It sends walkers along Foxhall Road, 44th Street NW and P Street NW. The park's more detailed detour page, last updated in 2022, routes the same walk via 45th Street and an alley behind houses. The posted signs and the current alert are the better guide.

A Bridge With a Long Line of Would-Be Rescuers

The thing blocking the path is the last streetcar bridge left in the District. It was built in 1896 for the Washington and Great Falls Electric Railway, whose Georgetown to Cabin John line ran from 1897 to 1960. Citywide, streetcar service lasted a little longer. The National Capital Trolley Museum gives January 28, 1962, as the final day for Washington streetcars. WMATA owns the trestle. The Park Service also counts it as a contributing resource to Glover-Archbold Park, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.

That history is why the closure has lasted so long. WTOP reported that debris had started falling and that the closure took effect in August 2016. The decade since has been less a delay than a run of serious efforts to save the bridge, each ending the same way.

DDOT's 2019 study also looked at a direct trail connection east of the trestle and found it infeasible because of steep grades. Once the District stopped funding a purchase, the remaining path was removal. In the Park Service's July 15, 2026 announcement, Rock Creek Park Superintendent Brian Joyner called removal the only responsible option after restoration alternatives had been explored. The agency said it would honor the site's history while restoring safe access.

What the Signature Sets in Motion

The document posted October 14 is a Memorandum of Agreement dated August 25, 2026. It records how the Park Service met its review duties under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act before letting WMATA onto federal parkland to remove the bridge. Read in order, its terms lay out the sequence a southbound walker is now waiting on:

1. The Park Service gives the signatories and consulting parties 30 days to review the proposed landscape restoration plan, then responds to their comments.
2. The Park Service issues the Special Use Permit, which lets WMATA stage equipment and reach the site through the park.
3. The bridge is documented as a historic property before any alteration begins.
4. WMATA demolishes the trestle and leaves the low concrete footers in place to mark where it stood.
5. Within six months of finishing demolition, WMATA completes the first round of landscape restoration, including the work needed to reopen the Glover-Archbold Trail.
6. A five-year vegetation maintenance period follows, so the new plantings take hold.

The six-month deadline in step five is the only firm timeline in the agreement, and it starts only after step four. As of July, neither the Park Service nor WMATA had released a demolition start date, according to The Georgetowner on July 20. DC News Now reported on July 17 that no duration had been announced either. The October 14 project update also gives no date. The next milestone to watch for is the Special Use Permit.

What walkers will find at the end has been spelled out. The site will be cleared and replanted with native vegetation, and interpretive signs will mark where the trestle stood. The goal is to keep the open central valley views and let the park keep working as a greenway from upper Northwest to the Potomac. The Park Service has also committed to a future Cultural Landscape Report for Glover-Archbold that will identify the park's historic views.

The Next Crew Is Already in the Woods

Even after the trestle comes down, the park will not be quiet for long. DC Water is preparing to rehabilitate the sewer and storm pipes under Glover-Archbold's creekbeds, which are about 85 years old. At ANC 3B's September 2026 meeting, Peter Kelley of DC Water said the Glover-Archbold portion of the project includes around 200 manholes and roughly 440,000 feet of pipe. Crews have identified 19 stream stabilization sites and 7 outfall stabilization sites.

The timeline has moved. An earlier DC Water FAQ expected the preliminary surveys to wrap up by spring 2026. The ANC 3B report now puts survey completion at spring 2027. Construction is tentatively set to start in 2028 and take about three to four years in total across Glover-Archbold, Dumbarton Oaks and Normanstone parks. For now the survey work is light. DC Water's field notice describes weekday crews working 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. without mechanized equipment, and some inspections will be done by autonomous vehicles.

Restoration of a different kind is happening above ground. Rock Creek Conservancy, working with the Park Service, reports clearing invasive plants across about six acres of Glover-Archbold since summer 2024, with native plants to be reintroduced in early 2027.

That puts three projects in the same valley on overlapping schedules. The trestle work waits on a permit, the Conservancy plans native replanting for early 2027, and the pipe work is penciled in for 2028. Until the permit is issued, the walk from Glover Park to the towpath still ends at Foxhall Road, and the Rock Creek Park alerts page is the place to check before you go.

If you live along one of those 42nd Street access points and are weighing whether to sell before the park work starts or wait until the canal route reopens, Dana Rice Group can show how timing plays out on your block. Request a complimentary market plan and staging consultation, and we'll walk through it with you, alongside our Glover Park neighborhood guide.