Walking and biking the W&OD and Four Mile Run trails

Two paved trails start in or cross the City of Falls Church, and between them they reach the Potomac River to the east and western Loudoun County to the west. The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail, the W&OD, crosses the city on an old railroad bed. The Four Mile Run Trail begins at the city's eastern edge and follows a stream down to the river near Reagan National Airport.

Both are shared-use paths for people on foot, on bikes and on skates. This guide covers where each one goes, how the W&OD started in Falls Church, and what to know before you head out.

The W&OD: 45 miles on a railroad bed

The W&OD runs 45 miles from Shirlington in Arlington to Purcellville in western Loudoun County. Most of it sits on the bed of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which closed in 1968. The park that holds it is only about 100 feet wide, and it is often called the skinniest park in Virginia. NOVA Parks runs it. More than two million people use it a year.

Mile markers stand along the paved trail, counting from Mile 0 at South Shirlington Road and South Four Mile Run Drive. The trail climbs from there. It rises through Arlington along Four Mile Run, crosses the fall line, and keeps climbing through the City of Falls Church and into Fairfax County, reaching 489 feet above sea level where it crosses I-66, so heading west out of Falls Church you are still climbing.

Farther west, a 32-mile gravel horse trail runs beside the paved one. That part is well beyond Falls Church, but it is part of the same park.

Where the trail began

The first piece of the W&OD Trail opened in 1974, and it was here, inside the City of Falls Church, between Little Falls Street and Railroad Avenue. It opened under a lease among the city, the power company that had bought the railroad land, and the regional park authority. It proved popular, and the trail grew from there. In 1979 it was extended 26 miles west to Goose Creek, though paved only as far as Vienna at first, and the paved trail reached Purcellville in 1988.

Two railroad leftovers sit close by. A white metal post lettered "Station 1 Mile" stands on the north side of the trail west of Little Falls Road, near the Arlington line. It marks one mile to the site of the railroad's West Falls Church station, which stood near the trail's crossing of West Broad Street and is long gone. Since 1993 the trail has crossed West Broad Street, Route 7, on its own bridge.

The Dual Trails in the city

For 1.2 miles in the city, the W&OD is not one path but two. In a project that opened in October 2021, NOVA Parks split that stretch into a 12-foot trail for bikes and an 8-foot trail for people on foot, with a 2-foot strip between them, doubling the corridor's width. Elsewhere the trail is about 10 feet wide.

Keep to the side meant for you. The point of the split, in NOVA Parks' words, is separation between cyclists and other trail users, and it wants to extend the dual trails beyond the city. When school is in session, many children walk or bike to school on the W&OD, and NOVA Parks asks trail users to pass groups of children with care.

The Four Mile Run Trail

The Four Mile Run Trail is a 7-mile paved path that runs from Benjamin Banneker Park, on Van Buren Street at the city's edge, to the Mount Vernon Trail near Reagan National Airport, where Four Mile Run empties into the Potomac.

It is older than the W&OD Trail. It opened on September 4, 1967, as a four-mile unpaved trail between Roosevelt Street in East Falls Church and Columbia Pike, and it was the first shared-use path in the country built with federal funds. By mid-1968 it had been extended north to Van Buren Street in Banneker Park.

The two trails run roughly side by side through Arlington, often on opposite banks of the stream, and share pavement in a few places. The Four Mile Run Trail is curvier and hillier. It is also the one with facilities: restrooms and more water fountains sit near its ball fields and picnic areas, while the W&OD in Arlington has no restrooms and few fountains.

Banneker Park is worth a stop on its own. Boundary stone SW9, set in 1791 to mark the original District of Columbia line, stands there, near the East Falls Church Metro station. Isaac Crossman Park sits across Van Buren Street at Four Mile Run.

Going farther

To the river. At its east end, the Four Mile Run Trail meets the Mount Vernon Trail, an 18-mile path along the George Washington Memorial Parkway between Rosslyn and Mount Vernon. Since 2009, a connector under I-395 links the W&OD's Mile 0 with the Four Mile Run Trail, so you can ride one out and the other back.

To Rosslyn and the District. About 0.6 miles past its junction with the Bluemont Junction Trail in Arlington, the W&OD meets the Custis Trail, a 4.5-mile path along I-66 to Rosslyn, with access across the river into Washington.

West. From Falls Church the W&OD continues through Vienna, Reston, Herndon and Leesburg to Purcellville.

Before you go

The W&OD is open from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day, year-round, along its full length. There is no single entrance; NOVA Parks says you can walk on or off at a point of your choosing. In summer, carry water: July afternoons average close to 90 degrees at Reagan National, and June and July are the wettest months of the year there.

NOVA Parks also posts current closures and construction delays on its W&OD page, so check it before a long ride.

Using our listings

City parks along or near the trails, including Isaac Crossman Park on Van Buren Street and the City of Falls Church Community Center on Little Falls Street, are in our Parks and Outdoors category, and the park that marks the District of Columbia's west cornerstone is under Museums and Galleries. Our listings show a street address and, where there is one, a phone number. Trail conditions and closures come from NOVA Parks, not from us.