Tammany Trace Closures in Abita Springs: Ride Routes and Timelines

The Abita Springs Trailhead normally sits in the middle of the Tammany Trace. Covington is 3.46 miles west and Mandeville is 8.69 miles east, according to the parish's Tammany Trace mileage chart. Since March 30, it hasn't worked that way. St. Tammany Parish closed the stretch between Gordon Avenue and the Abita Springs Trailhead to every Trace user so crews can replace the bridge over the Abita River. The parish lists no detour.

For the rest of this year, the Trailhead at 22049 Main Street is the end of the line on the Covington side. Any continuous ride from town heads toward Mandeville. This fall, that direction has its own closures, too.

Four bridges, four timelines

The Abita River bridge is one of four Trace bridge projects on the parish's closures page. Two are in or next to Abita Springs, and two are farther down the trail in Mandeville. Each has its own dates and its own answer to whether you can get around it.

Read across the rows and the closures overlap in a way that matters for anyone starting in Abita Springs. The Covington connection is gone until at least year-end. Bridge #24, right in town, sends riders onto a short loop of town streets. Bridge #14 in Mandeville also has a street detour. Bridge #13 over Bayou Castine, the newest closure on the list, has no detour at all and is expected to stay closed until May 2027.

So the bridge you will probably wait longest for is in Mandeville. The Abita River bridge, in town, should come back first.

What the Trailhead still connects to

Measured from the Abita Springs Trailhead, here is how far it is to the stops on the Mandeville side, per the parish mileage chart:

• Hoffman: 1.95 miles
• Tammany Trace Trailhead and Caboose: 4.4 miles
• Sharp Road: 5.9 miles
• Mandeville Trailhead: 8.69 miles
• Fontainebleau: 11.46 miles

The Covington side is now off the table. On the chart, Josephine is 1.12 miles west of the Abita Springs Trailhead, Claiborne Hill is 2.71 miles and the Covington Trailhead is 3.46 miles. Because the closure starts at the Abita Springs Trailhead itself, an out-and-back to downtown Covington is no longer a Trace ride from town.

Plan any longer ride east around the two Mandeville closures. Bridge #14, between Molitor and Dupre, has the Montgomery Street detour. Bridge #13 over Bayou Castine, between Rapatel Street and Group Camp Road, does not. A route that has to cross Bayou Castine on the Trace won't work until spring. Check the parish closures page before a long ride, because that page is where any change in these dates will show up first.

Daylight is a factor too. Starting October 4, 2026, the parish set Trace hours at 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. A ride to the Mandeville Trailhead and back from Abita Springs covers more than 17 miles, so an afternoon start needs some margin before closing time.

A Sunday at the Trailhead, rearranged

The Town of Abita Springs runs the Abita Springs Art and Farmers Market there every Sunday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., rain or shine. The remaining fall Sundays are October 25 and November 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29. The Trailhead Museum sits on the Trace, and the market spills out around it.

Visit the Northshore describes the museum as steps from Abita Brew Pub, at 72011 Holly Street, and within easy walking distance of other restaurants and attractions. Abita Springs Café is at 22132 Level Street, and the UCM Museum, also known as the Abita Mystery House, is at 22275 Highway 36.

With the Covington side closed, the Trailhead works as a starting point and a finish line. Head east in the morning, come back the same way, and the market is still open if you're back before 2 p.m. On Bridge #24's in-town detour, Hickory, St. John and 6th Streets are shared roads, not trail, so ride them that way.

One practical gap: Visit the Northshore lists bike shops and rentals in Covington, Mandeville and Slidell, but none in Abita Springs. Before the closure, a flat tire near the Trailhead was a short ride from Covington. Now the closest listed shop is a drive away.

For evening plans, the Abita Opry plays Abita Springs Town Hall on Saturday, November 21, the last fall show on its schedule.

Why the bridges are coming out now

The Trace's bridges started life as railroad bridges. St. Tammany Parish bought the abandoned Illinois Central Railroad corridor on December 20, 1992. Using grants and federal money, it paved 31 miles and converted the old railroad trestles into pedestrian bridges. NOLA.com calls it Louisiana's first Rails-to-Trails conversion and reports that roughly 300,000 riders, runners and walkers use the Trace each year.

The Abita River project replaces a wooden span that parish officials told NOLA.com had deteriorated over the years and raised safety concerns. NOLA.com reports that the new bridge is a 300-foot steel trestle, built off-site and brought in for installation, at a cost of roughly $1.6 million. It is one of 32 bridges along the 31-mile trail.

The same article says this is part of a longer program. In 2023 the parish replaced the span over Little Bayou Castine in Mandeville. At that ribbon cutting, Parish President Mike Cooper said other aging bridges along the trail would eventually need replacing. Parish public information director Michael Vinsanau told NOLA.com that as many as half the spans could be targeted, though most are shorter than the Abita River and Little Bayou Castine bridges.

Bridge #24 has its own budget line. A parish capital-plan attachment introduced in November 2025 sets aside $1.01 million to replace it, funded through Sales Tax District 3, the Tammany Trace district.

Taken together, these numbers point to more closures to come. With 32 bridges and up to half of them in line for replacement, this fall's overlapping closures look like an early part of a multiyear program.

What the next few months look like from Main Street

The parish still lists end of 2026 as the expected finish for the Abita River bridge. If that holds, the Covington connection comes back around the start of the new year. Bridge #24's in-town detour stays in place into early 2027, with the closure heading listing February. Bridge #13 at Bayou Castine is expected to stay closed until May 2027. Until the Abita River bridge reopens, the Trailhead's Sunday market, the Brew Pub and the museum remain where Abita Springs rides start and end.

If you'd like to know how the Trace, or the parish's longer list of bridge projects, plays into a specific street or a specific home in Abita Springs, Patricia Conaghan is glad to talk it through. Let's talk about your next move.