Tag: Baltimore and Annapolis Trail

Rediscovering the B&A Trail between Baltimore and Annapolis

Five years after my first bike ride along the B&A Trail in Maryland, I was back.

Old rails, newer trail

Back in 2014, I biked this trail as part of the East Coast Greenway’s Week A Year Ride between Philadelphia and Fredericksburg, Virginia. This year we were in the area for a wedding, so we brought the bikes and headed out for a ride starting just north of Annapolis.

The B&A Trail uses an old rail line that connected, well, Baltimore and Annapolis. Today it’s a well-used 13-mile trail along part of that line that ties into the BWI Trail around the airport with the help of a short connector. Loved seeing the private connections from yards to the trail!

Continue reading “Rediscovering the B&A Trail between Baltimore and Annapolis”

Oh, if most of the East Coast Greenway route was like this section around Baltimore!

Baltimore has a trail system that gets cyclists downtown, around the inner harbor and then south using the Jones Falls Trail, the Fallsway, the Gwynns Falls Trail, the Middle Branch Trail, the BWI Trail and the B&A Trail.

I understand more about why Baltimore is a bicycle-friendly community and Maryland is ranked seventh among the states for bike-friendliness by the League of American Bicyclists.

Baltimore has figured out a trail system that gets cyclists downtown, around the inner harbor and then south. That’s pretty amazing for a large city.

It’s not always pretty and it could use some better signage in spots, but given that the trails (multi-use paths, sometimes just wide sidewalks, sometimes out-of-the-way roadways, like the one past an incinerator, and switching from side to side of the road in spots) came after the city, it’s impressive how officials got the Jones Falls Trails to connect to the Fallsway to the Gwynns Falls Trail to the Middle Branch Trail.

Jack in Baltimore (courtesy of jackbikes.org)
Jack in Baltimore (courtesy of jackbikes.org)

And it’s doing more. It looks like this federal grant for bike-ped infrastructure in South Baltimore will improve the East Coast Greenway as well.

While we didn’t see Camden Yards, we did see the stadium where the Ravens play (photo courtesy of Melinda):

ravens stadium

And once we were out of Baltimore County and in Anne Arundel County, we were on part of the 11-mile BWI Trail that loops around BWI airport and connects to the 13.3-mile Baltimore and Annapolis Trail, a straight line of asphalt that got busier and busier as we got closer to Annapolis. And an ice cream shop or two along the way. Bliss!

Police officers on bikes rode with some of the ECG riders along the BWI Trail (courtesy of jackbikes.org)
Police officers on bikes rode with some of the ECG riders along the BWI Trail (courtesy of jackbikes.org)

But Annapolis, what were you thinking when you put the World War II memorial on a large grassy section between two northbound and two southbound lanes of traffic? How accessible to visitors is that?