Benefits Rails to Trails

Bicyling attire + bike

Tickets $20

Registration includes a complimentary Baltimore Greenway 2019 t-shirt. Funds raised will go to support Rails to Trails.

This year’s urban bike ride explores the Western and Southern loops of the Baltimore Greenways Trail Network and efforts led by Rails to Trails to create a world-class network of connected urban trails in Baltimore. AIA Baltimore has joined Rails to Trails as an advocacy partner in the effort to complete the 10 additional miles needed to close critical gaps through 50 neighborhoods and help reverse the urban fragmentation. Former rail lines, industrial coastlines and reconfigured roadways will be transformed from barriers in the built environment to community-based assets centered on trails. This will change the way Baltimore residents work, live and play—and generate myriad long-term impacts related to social equity, health, environmental conservation, active transportation and economic development.

This tour focuses on a mostly flat 10 mile stretch that includes the Western and Southern loops of the trail, and passes through the South Baltimore neighborhoods of Sharp-Leadenhall, Pigtown, Carroll Park, Westport, and then through Middle Branch Park with view of the Potomac and where the Hanover Street Bridge spans Cherry Hill to Port Covington. The natural waterfront areas along the Middle Branch—ecologically rich and home to some of the best waterfowl seeing—go largely unnoticed, hidden behind vestiges of industry and beneath highway interchanges.  Better access by trails will help to strengthen the natural assets of Baltimore’s lesser known harbor.