Current Cresheim Trail

OpenStreetMap has the most accurate and up-to-date Cresheim Trail alignments.

Beginning in 2012, the Friends of the Cresheim Trail have built over two miles of sustainable, natural surface trail within City-owned parkland. It’s become a well used, much loved trail for hikers, dog walkers, and mountain bikers. As of 2023, there are four primary access points:

The Cresheim Trail is on Google Maps, but the alignment is outdated. OpenStreetMap has the most up-to-date version of the trail HERE, including the Friends Loop trail which FOCT built with support from Chestnut Hill Greenspace, Philadelphia Parks & Recreation, and Friends of the Wissahickon in April 2023. It also now includes the “rough draft” of the rail trail between Germantown and Stenton Avenues we built in March 2024. This segment will be part of the Circuit Trails network upon completion, with a 10-foot wide, ADA-accessible paved trail.

 

 

Proposed Cresheim Trail

Map prepared by NV5 for FOCT.

The remaining segments of the proposed Cresheim Trail primarily traverse old railroad rights-of-way, including the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Fort Washington Branch and the Reading Railroad’s Plymouth Branch. FOCT is actively working with the City of Philadelphia, Montgomery County, Springfield Township, and additional agencies to build the next phases of the Cresheim Trail to provide a safe, off-road alternative to high speed local roads for recreation, transportation, and connecting with neighbors.

On the Philadelphia side, in 2023, FOCT built the Friends Loop, a one-third mile loop trail through an old quarry on the Chestnut Hill side of Cresheim Valley Drive. In 2024, FOCT coordinated with Philadelphia Parks & Recreation to open the “rough draft” of the rail trail between Germantown and Stenton Avenues, with connections into Wissahickon East Park and a future crossing into Chestnut Hill at Crittenden Street. To continue into Montgomery County, the short-term plan will involve a crossing at Stenton Avenue, with the long-term plan to tunnel under Stenton.

On the MontCo side, in 2021 per an agreement with Springfield Township (Montgomery County), developers Foxlane Homes constructed a half-mile segment of the trail between Willow Grove Avenue and Paper Mill Road, parallel to PA-309, as part of their Falcon Hill Estates project. In 2022, the Township completed a restoration project of Mermaid Park, which contains the headwaters of Cresheim Creek and a segment of the Cresheim Trail. And the trail has been a central component to the Township’s Trail Plan, in development.

 

Long Term Cresheim Trail Outlook