Fall Line Trail

The Fall Line is an approximately 43.6 mile paved multi-use trail currently under development — from a northern terminus in Ashland, Virginia to a southern terminus in Petersburg, Virginia — aligning with the East Coast Greenway, a proposed 3,000 mile pedestrian and bicycle route between Maine and Florida.

Early in its development, the Fall Line had been identified as the Ashland to Petersburg Trail (ATP), and was formally renamed when the state of Virginia broke ground on the trail in October, 2020. Anticipated to serve as a recreational and commuter spine for Central Virginia, the trail has no formal scheduled completion date, as of mid-2021.

Running roughly north-south, the trail is projected to cross Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, the cities of Colonial Heights, Petersburg and Richmond, and the Town of Ashland — and will cross the Chickahominy, the James and Appomattox Rivers.

Sports Backers, a Richmond-based tax-exempt active-living advocacy group formed in 1991 — and chief proponent of the trail — estimates that 350,000 people live within two miles of the proposed route. The organization leads a series of guided hikes along proposed sections of the Fall Line, each October.

The trail's name refers to its location along the Atlantic Seaboard's geological Fall Line, the 900 mi (1,400 km)-long escarpment where the Piedmont and Atlantic Coastal Plain meet.