A new PBS documentary is airing this weekend, and it features Northern Virginia’s own Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Trail.
Set to be broadcast on WETA Metro, the local public television station, “From Rails to Trails” highlights the decades-long struggle to transform abandoned railroad tracks into public trails. The film was adapted from Peter Harnik’s 2021 book of the same name.
“There’s a lot more to a trail than just putting down a surface, taking out the tracks, putting down the surface and going with it,” Harnik said in an interview. “[Transforming rails to trails] it’s a conflict-laden enterprise, as is everything that’s worth doing.”
Throughout the documentary, Harnik and director/producer Dan Protess look at how grassroots activists in cities from New York City to Seattle and Atlanta have advocated for abandoned railroad tracks to be re-utilized for recreation. The movie provides insight into Supreme Court cases and contentious local politics that blocked new trails due to land grants and easements.
The first recognized conversion was in Wisconsin in 1965 with the Elroy-Sparta State Trail. In 1968, Congress passed the National Trails System Act, which promoted the use of trails across the country. A rail-trail grant program was created in 1976, followed by “railbanking” legislation in 1980. This enabled the preservation of unused railroad tracks for an interim use as trails.
Harnik says the W&OD Trail — which partially opened in 1974 in the City of Falls Church with the help of NOVA Parks and Dominion Energy — was instrumental in pushing the national rails-to-trails movement forward.
“Since it’s located in the Washington suburbs, a fair number of important decision-making people — not only congressmen and senators, but their staff and other members of the bureaucracy … came across the trail over the years,” he said. “… When we would go lobbying on Capitol Hill … they knew exactly what we’re talking about. Most of them said, ‘Oh, I just love the W&OD. It’s one of the best things in Northern Virginia.'”
The W&OD Trail spans 45 miles from the Shirlington area of Arlington County to Purcellville, beyond Leesburg in Loudoun County. The trail passes through the Dunn Loring area, Vienna, Reston, Herndon and Sterling.
Federal funding for rail-trails came in 1991 with the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. The 1,000th rail-trail opened in 1998, and the movement only continued to pick up steam at the turn of the 21st century.
In 2019, 12 states and D.C. partnered with the Rails to Trails Conservancy to launch the Great American Rail-Trail. The trail, which is expected to span 3,700 miles, will stretch from the District to Washington state.
Harnik said Northern Virginia’s preservation of the W&OD Trail can largely be credited to NOVA Parks and the local jurisdictions along the route.
“There’s so much money in Northern Virginia just trying to buy up land. Unlike many, many other park agencies … NOVA Parks has really stood up and said, ‘No, you’re not going to take part of this for your development,'” Harnik said.
Protess hopes his documentary will educate locals about rail trails and bring awareness to the movement.
“As a user of rail trails, you don’t necessarily know what went into creating one of these things, and I was struck by the extent to which every single mile of those 26,000 miles of rail trails around America had to be fought for by communities,” Protess said.
The documentary will premiere in the region on Saturday (Oct. 18) at 8 p.m. on WETA Metro. It’ll also air on Maryland Public Television on Sunday at 8 p.m. and stream on PBS.org.
This story has been updated to clarify the channel where “From Rails to Trails” will air. It will be broadcast on WETA Metro, not the flagship channel WETA.
