The Emerald Trail in Jacksonville, Florida

The Emerald Trail is a planned 30-mile bicycle and pedestrian trail and linear park system around Jacksonville's urban core, being developed by Groundwork Jacksonville with the City of Jacksonville and JTA.

The Jacksonville Transportation Authority describes the trail as a system that will connect 14 historic neighborhoods and downtown Jacksonville to local and regional trails, parks, schools, businesses, transit and other destinations. JTA lists it under City Council Districts 5, 7, 8, 9 and 14, with an estimated cost of $132,000,000 and a project status of design.

Groundwork Jacksonville, the nonprofit planning the system, says that when complete it will encompass more than 30 miles of trails, greenways and parks that encircle the urban core and link at least 14 historic neighborhoods to downtown, Hogans Creek, McCoys Creek and the St. Johns River. Its current page counts 16 schools, three colleges, three hospitals, 21 parks and the Regional Transportation Center along the route, with 13 additional schools and 17 parks within three blocks. The October 2023 JTA and Groundwork release gives the same counts except two colleges rather than three, so the two published figures differ on that one item.

The current route comes from the Emerald Trail Master Plan, which the Jacksonville City Council adopted on March 26, 2019, according to JTA.

Groundwork Jacksonville says its master plan was developed by the PATH Foundation, which it describes as having built more than 260 miles of trails throughout Georgia, together with landscape architect KAIZEN Collaborative. The Groundwork Emerald Trail page states that the $88,200 plan cost was privately underwritten by a $50,000 donation from JTC Running, with grants from the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Giving Forward Community Endowment Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida. The plan divides the work into Programmed Segments, Implementation Tier 1 and Implementation Tier 2, with the stated goal of always having a segment in acquisition, design, permitting or construction.

At the 2021 groundbreaking, Groundwork CEO Kay Ehas called the trail a collective vision for almost a century and one of the primary goals for establishing a Groundwork Trust in Jacksonville, according to Groundwork. The same release described the 30-mile Emerald Trail as a public-private partnership between the City and Groundwork and projected completion by 2029, a date later superseded by the federal grant schedule described below.

The 1.3-mile LaVilla Link, the first segment, opened on May 6, 2024, with a ribbon cutting hosted by Mayor Donna Deegan, Groundwork and Baptist Health, Groundwork reports.

Groundwork records that Mayor Lenny Curry and Groundwork broke ground on the LaVilla Link on August 24, 2021, with an estimated construction cost of $8.9 million. The 14-foot-wide concrete pedestrian and bicycle trail runs from Park and Stonewall streets in Brooklyn over the Park Street Bridge, north along Lee Street, west at Church Street and across Beaver Street to the S-Line Rail Trail at Wilcox Street and State Street in the Railyard District. Groundwork credits the design to Pond and construction to Astra Group, and lists privately funded features: the Park Street bridge overlook, the Lee Street Pond boardwalk and overlook, and a butterfly garden along West Church Street just east of I-95.

In its opening announcement, Groundwork says the LaVilla Link was designed and constructed by the City in partnership with Groundwork and funded by the City and charitable support, with Baptist Health as lead investor. The link was not in the first plan draft; Durkeeville and New Town residents suggested it for direct access downtown, according to Ehas. It connects the Prime F. Osborn Convention Center, the Regional Transportation Center, the Beaver Street Enterprise Center and the existing S-Line Rail Trail, creating nearly three miles of contiguous trail, and it serves as the trail's Model Project.

The Hogan Street Link through downtown Jacksonville broke ground in fall 2025, with construction continuing through 2026, according to JTA.

Groundwork describes the Hogan Street Link as a 0.9-mile trail linking the St. Johns River to FSCJ and Springfield through the urban core, with a first construction phase from Water Street to Union Street. Points of interest it lists along the way include Riverfront Plaza, James Weldon Johnson Park, the St. James Building (City Hall), the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Federal Courthouse, the Jacksonville Public Library and the JTA Rosa Parks Transit Station.

The Riverside Link is a 2.3-mile segment that will connect Riverside to North Riverside and McCoys Creek and tie into the Florida Department of Transportation shared-use path across the Fuller Warren Bridge to the Southbank Riverwalk and San Marco. Groundwork names HDR and SCAPE Landscape Architecture as design partners and calls a $1 million grant from the Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Funds and the J. Wayne Weaver Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida its largest single private donation; the James M. Cox Foundation added $500,000 for design. Its page, written before 2026, said design would continue through 2025 with construction expected to begin in 2026. A spur along Riverside Avenue is planned to connect the Artist Walk at the Northbank Riverwalk to Memorial Park.

The creeks are part of the same program. Groundwork lists a February 5, 2026 groundbreaking with the City on the McCoys Creek Branches restoration on its LaVilla Link news page. Its Hogans Creek page describes a 2.6-mile tidal and freshwater creek that begins at the CSX Railroad just north of the S-Line Rail Trail and flows south to the St. Johns River at the Shipyards, flooding Klutho and Springfield parks in moderate rain; the restoration design is at 60 percent and would restore 1,300 feet of daylighted creek. Residents asked that the historic park features designed by Henry Klutho, including the balustrades, be protected.

The base funding is $132 million from Jacksonville's Local Option Gas Tax, while a $147 million federal grant awarded in 2024 was rescinded in July 2025.

On October 26, 2023, the City, Groundwork and JTA announced a Memorandum of Understanding for the five remaining trail segments, to be funded in part by $132M from the Local Option Gas Tax. Under it, Groundwork leads outreach and trail design, JTA leads permitting and construction procurement, and the two jointly negotiate with designers. The release put 40 percent of the trail complete, under construction or in design at that time, and noted that JTA and Groundwork had submitted a $184M Neighborhood Access and Equity grant application to the U.S. Department of Transportation in September 2023.

On March 13, 2024, JTA announced that the City, JTA and Groundwork had been awarded a federal grant of $147 million to design and construct the five segments, the largest one-time federal grant the City of Jacksonville has ever received and one of 132 awards announced by USDOT that day. In a July 9, 2025 letter, Groundwork said it had been informed that unobligated grants under the Federal Highway Administration Neighborhood Access and Equity Program were permanently rescinded, including the $147M Emerald Trail grant. Groundwork wrote that work would move forward on segment 3 in Riverside and segment 4, the S-Line Connector, because both are partly funded by the gas tax and private donors, that completion under the grant had been anticipated in 2031, and that the grant had included more than $3.5M for Groundwork's own project management and community engagement.

Groundwork's letter puts those five segments at roughly 15 miles of trail, and its Emerald Trail page map now shows half of the 30-mile Emerald Trail in design, under construction or complete. Last verified: October 18, 2026, against JTA's Emerald Trail project page and its 2023 and 2024 releases, plus Groundwork Jacksonville's own project pages and its July 2025 grant letter.