Gettysburg’s
trail proposal
Gettysburg’s proposed trail network links access, preservation and long-term costs. Public comments are open through December 2, 2026.
A person standing beside a battlefield avenue may be only a short distance from the next historic site and still have no comfortable way to reach it without getting back into a car. That mismatch is the central public-policy question in the National Park Service’s new trails proposal for Gettysburg National Military Park and neighboring Eisenhower National Historic Site. The question is not simply whether more walking is desirable. It is which connections should receive limited money, which users should share them, and what changes can fit inside landscapes preserved for their historic significance.
The November 2026 draft environmental assessment offers more detail than the announcement’s headline number. NPS describes a designated public-use network of 48.27 miles, including approximately 13.3 miles of additional pedestrian facilities and 3 miles of new pedestrian-and-bicycle routes. It estimates capital implementation at about $5.8 million in 2026 dollars and annual maintenance at about $140,000. Those figures are planning estimates, not appropriations, signed construction contracts or a guarantee that every route will open together. Implementation would extend approximately 10 to 15 years, depending on funding, staffing, design, compliance and operational priorities.
Comments opened November 2 and are due December 2, 2026. NPS says no public meeting is scheduled. The draft, its maps and the comment opportunity are available through the agency’s Planning, Environment and Public Comment system. This report examines those public documents; it is not a report from a site visit. The photographs show existing park landscapes and facilities, not completed versions of the proposed projects.
Read the mileage as an inventory, not a construction total
The first useful distinction is between a network and the work needed to create it. Much of the proposed system uses places that already function as mowed paths or other routes. NPS says approximately 80 percent of the proposed network consists of existing mowed pathways. Formalizing such a route can mean drainage work, signs, modest grading and continued mowing rather than excavating and paving a completely new corridor. Yet formalization is not cost-free: a route that visitors are invited to follow creates continuing responsibilities for maintenance, orientation and resource protection.
The assessment’s detailed mileage table separates bicycle-and-pedestrian trails from pedestrian trails and recommended routes along roads. It lists bicycle/pedestrian facilities growing from 3.8 to 6.8 miles and pedestrian facilities from 27.6 to 40.9 miles. It separately lists recommended on-road walking routes rising from 6.3 to 17.2 miles and on-road cycling routes from 56.3 to 78 miles. These are different inventory categories. Adding all four rows would not yield the announced off-road trail network, and calling all of the mileage “new trails” would substantially misdescribe the proposal.
There is also a small but visible reconciliation problem in the public documents. The two off-road totals in that table, 6.8 and 40.9 miles, add to 47.7 miles, rather than the 48.27 miles in the news release. The assessment warns that individual estimates may not sum precisely because of rounding. Its table also notes that the pedestrian addition includes 0.1 mile of rerouted equestrian/pedestrian trail and 0.17 mile of sidewalk. Those details do not by themselves explain the full 0.57-mile difference. Readers should retain the published figures with their definitions rather than silently manufacture a precise explanation. Clarifying the final inventory would be a useful outcome of review.
The public investment is in connections
Six proposed multi-use links illustrate the difference between mileage and utility. The Spangler’s Spring route would connect the Museum and Visitor Center with Culp’s Hill, crossing Baltimore Pike at the existing visitor-center entrance. The Taneytown Road project would replace an existing pedestrian walkway with a wider facility between Meade’s Headquarters and the National Cemetery parking area. The Emmitsburg Road route would run beside the west side of the road, connecting Steinwehr Avenue, Sickles Avenue and other destinations while separating users from vehicle traffic. Its feasibility would require coordination with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.
A Baltimore Pike east-side link would connect the Spangler Farm Trail, described in the assessment as under construction, with routes around Blacksmith Shop Road and Culp’s Hill. A short connection toward Gettysburg Borough Recreation Park uses an adjusted alignment intended to avoid the wetland crossings that undermined an earlier option. Another short sidepath near Southwest Confederate Avenue and Eisenhower Farm Lane would help people avoid the Emmitsburg Road intersection. A link measured in hundredths of a mile can therefore address a specific gap that prevents a much longer journey from functioning safely.
The design discussion considers widths of 8 to 10 feet where feasible, sightline clearing at curves and junctions, directional signs and clearer expectations for shared use. It does not promise that every path will have the same cross-section. Asphalt or compacted gravel would generally serve the new multi-use routes, with bridges, boardwalks or culverts where conditions require them. The governing test is whether each alignment and crossing works in its actual setting, not whether its mileage looks impressive in a systemwide total.
More walking does not mean every user goes everywhere
The pedestrian proposals are deliberately varied. Some are short connections to existing destinations; others form loops through landscapes that are difficult to interpret from the auto tour. The 0.27-mile Railroad Cut proposal would connect a proposed West End Guide Station trailhead to Lee’s Headquarters, which is American Battlefield Trust property, while directing pedestrians away from Chambersburg Road. The 1.12-mile Warfield loop would connect the Warfield access route with Rose Farm and surrounding avenues. The 2.03-mile South Cavalry Field loop would connect a proposed Emmitsburg Road trailhead through the field and Bishop Farm toward the Eisenhower show barns.
Those alignments would make different stories reachable. The assessment identifies the rehabilitated James Warfield home and South Cavalry Field as places whose interpretive potential is not fully served by the existing avenue system. A designated route can change which history a visitor encounters without adding a museum building. But a line on a map must still be evaluated for surface, grade, road crossings, sight distance and how a person returns to the start. “Pedestrian” is a permitted-use category, not a statement that every visitor can comfortably use the entire route.
The plan explicitly separates pedestrian/bicycle trails from pedestrian/equestrian trails. It does not propose bicycle-only facilities, and bicycles would not be authorized on the existing shared horse-and-walking trails. New equestrian construction would be limited; the principal change is a realignment by the G. Weikert farm. NPS dismissed other horse-route options because of concerns involving water crossings, wetlands, archeology, grades and maintenance. This is a distribution of uses across a network, rather than an invitation to put every activity on every path.
Eisenhower’s farm changes the transport problem
Eisenhower National Historic Site is adjacent to the battlefield, but adjacency does not guarantee a useful nonmotorized connection. The assessment says people currently traveling between the parks may need roads with posted speeds up to 40 mph. It also describes limited formal circulation beyond the developed area surrounding the Eisenhower home. That matters because the site preserves a much broader farm landscape, including fields, pastures, woods and other buildings, rather than just the house interior.
Four pedestrian proposals would expand that experience. Biesecker Woods would connect an existing equestrian/pedestrian route to a mowed path toward the skeet range. An eastern field loop would follow the agricultural edge. A Secret Service Road route would use an existing road trace between Eisenhower Drive and Red Rock Road. A show-barn route would follow fence and tree lines and connect with the South Cavalry Field trail. The plan’s transport and interpretive objectives meet here: the connection determines whether the farm can be understood as part of a wider landscape or remains a separate car stop.
The operating context has already changed. Visitors may now drive directly to the site; the park’s current visitor information describes on-site parking, while groups of ten or more are asked to contact the park in advance about limited tour availability. RVs, trailers and buses require prior approval. Those existing visitor instructions are separate from the trail proposal. A future walking network would not itself expand house-tour capacity or eliminate restrictions on large vehicles. It could, however, create more ways to experience the grounds when the house is closed or tours are unavailable.
Visitor counts need a measurement footnote
The assessment’s annual visitation table appears at first to show radically different trajectories in the two parks. Gettysburg recorded 741,574 recreation visits in 2024, compared with 1,020,702 in 2014. Eisenhower recorded 123,466 in 2024, compared with 58,240 in 2014. But the Eisenhower series does not use a stable measurement system throughout. The assessment says earlier statistics relied on shuttle ticket sales; private-vehicle access expanded, recording was inconsistent for a period, and traffic counters were installed at all entrances in June 2023.
It would therefore be misleading to treat the jump in recorded Eisenhower visits as a clean estimate of a sudden increase in underlying demand. Some of the difference reflects who was counted and how. At the same time, the operational concern is not imaginary: people who drive independently can stay longer and use more of the grounds, affecting parking turnover. A planning decision needs the measurement caveat and the on-the-ground access issue together. Dismissing either one would leave the analysis incomplete.
The Gettysburg pattern makes a related point. Lower annual totals do not rule out congestion at a particular stop during a busy hour. The assessment specifically identifies Little Round Top as a location where vehicle congestion persists. A network intended to redistribute movement should be judged by route choices, bottlenecks and crossing conditions, rather than assuming that an annual visitor total directly predicts every local traffic problem.
A $5.8 million estimate is not a funded program
The draft’s capital breakdown assigns about $3 million to trail construction and improvement, $250,000 to closing or rehabilitating redundant segments, $2 million to trailheads and visitor amenities, and $550,000 to restoration of unauthorized social trails. The last two categories show why a trail investment is more than a strip of ground. Accessible parking, bicycle parking, interpretation, benches, signs, drainage, vegetation recovery and monitoring all affect whether people use the formal system and whether the surrounding landscape benefits.
These are Class C planning-level estimates, with a stated accuracy range of plus or minus 25 to 40 percent. NPS says they are intended for programmatic planning and environmental analysis, not as project budgets or funding requests. Final alignments, engineering, accessibility requirements, site conditions and market prices would refine them. Funding could involve appropriations, philanthropic support and grants, while staff capacity would also shape implementation. A reader evaluating public spending should ask which pieces are prioritized and what evidence would move them forward, rather than treating the total as money already committed.
The $140,000 annual maintenance estimate deserves the same scrutiny. NPS anticipates a cost roughly 30 percent below the no-action alternative, attributing the improvement to fewer redundant segments, better drainage, formalized mowed routes and reduced erosion. That is the agency’s planning expectation, not a measured saving from an operating network. The practical test would come through inspection results, actual labor and material needs, and whether maintenance remains adequately funded as new segments open. A low capital cost cannot compensate for an unfunded obligation to keep a route usable.
Preservation can require closing a route
The proposal would close and restore selected informal “social trails” at places including Culp’s Hill, Powers Hill, Big Round Top, Reynolds Woods and the Pickett’s Charge area. Visitors may experience a worn shortcut as an established path, but repeated foot traffic can erode soil and damage vegetation or cultural resources. The plan links formal access to rehabilitation: provide a route that makes sense, then use signs, brush placement, barriers, restoration and enforcement where needed to prevent the same damage recurring beside it.
The draft also proposes repurposing Carman and Williams avenues for walking and cycling. These are selected redundant paved segments, not a general closure of the battlefield’s auto tour. Carman runs parallel to Colgrove Avenue; the proposal would also reverse Colgrove’s existing one-way vehicle direction, and the assessment says a tour bus would need to field-test the arrangement for feasibility. Williams parallels Slocum Avenue and is described as used mainly for maintenance access. Reusing pavement can avoid new disturbance, but the traffic effects still need to work for buses, maintenance and emergency access.
Other closures were considered and rejected. Closing Wainwright Avenue, for example, would restrict vehicle access to monuments. Other proposed traffic-pattern changes were dismissed because they could confuse drivers, limit emergency response or affect bus operations. These rejected options are part of the evidence, not incidental paperwork: they show that reducing cars in one place can create a different access problem elsewhere. Public review can test whether the selected compromises address the actual conflict at each location.
The decision still has more than one gate
The assessment compares taking no action with adopting the comprehensive plan. No action would mean continued current management and routine small-scale maintenance, not abandonment of the parks. The proposed action would establish a direction for phased investment. Even if that alternative is selected, the document describes a programmatic plan: individual projects would need their own compliance review as they are implemented. A network-level environmental analysis is not a substitute for final engineering or site-specific checks.
The draft also identifies a separate bicycle authorization process under the rule it applies. All proposed bicycle trails in this plan are within developed areas. If NPS reaches a finding of no significant impact, it says an additional written determination and Federal Register comment process would follow for the bicycle uses. Readers should not confuse this Gettysburg proposal with the separate national bicycle-rule proposal covered in our earlier report on the national bicycle-rule proposal. One concerns a specific park network; the other concerns the broader regulatory framework. Neither headline alone tells a visitor that a presently prohibited route is open to bicycles today.
Accessibility is similarly more specific than a general promise of inclusion. The draft refers to applicable Architectural Barriers Act requirements and proposes more useful trailhead information about surfaces, distance, difficulty, permitted uses, accessible facilities and connections. At Little Round Top, the existing official walking-tour page already warns that paved and compressed-earth paths are not all accessible. Future signs and route designs should help people make decisions before they reach a barrier, while remaining compatible with the protected landscape.
What a useful public comment could address
A concrete comment can connect a named location to a consequence. Is a proposed crossing placed where drivers and pedestrians can see one another? Would an eight-to-ten-foot shared path accommodate the expected movements at a junction? Does a proposed connection actually let someone return to parking without an unsafe road segment? Which trailhead information would make a route usable for someone who cannot handle a particular surface or grade? The draft’s route names and Appendix A maps provide a way to ask those questions without relying on a general preference for more or fewer trails.
The implementation sequence is another meaningful subject. A short connector might produce benefits earlier than a longer standalone loop, while a restoration project could depend on providing an attractive alternative first. The public materials do not establish a fully funded construction calendar. Asking how safety, accessibility, resource protection, partner coordination and recurring maintenance would determine priorities is more useful than demanding a single opening date for a system planned over a decade or longer.
For now, the actionable deadline is December 2, not a ribbon cutting. Read the draft assessment and maps, distinguish proposed facilities from existing routes, and use the official project page for comments and any updates. Gettysburg’s proposal is a test of whether public access can be expanded through careful connections while preserving what makes the landscape worth visiting. Its success would be demonstrated by usable routes, understandable rules and maintenance that lasts, rather than by the mileage headline alone.
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