How far can you ride the Seaboard Coastline Trail from downtown Suffolk? Starting at Prentis Street, the paved path ends at Moore Avenue after about a mile and a half. To keep going, you put the bike back on the car and drive to a different trailhead.
TrailLink's current listing counts about 6.5 paved miles split into three separate sections. The full corridor is planned, funded and drawn on maps, but it isn't built yet. That changes how you use the trail. Because the sections don't connect, each trip starts at a specific trailhead, and what's waiting at that trailhead decides which section you pick. This fall, the downtown and Driver ends both have more going on than they did a year ago.
Three sections, three different starting points
| Section | Trailhead | Paved length | What's at the start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Downtown | Seaboard Station Railroad Museum, 326 N. Main St. | About 1.5 miles to Moore Ave. | The museum, which reopened in June 2026 |
| Northeast | 212 Suburban Dr. | 1.5 miles to Nansemond Pkwy. | Limited parking, picnic table, bike repair station |
| Driver | 3160 Kings Hwy. | 3.5 miles one way to Town Point | Pollinator garden, plus Kings Highway businesses across the road |
Suffolk Tourism names four trailheads: Town Point on Bromay Street, Driver on Kings Highway, the Seaboard Station Railroad Museum on Prentis Street, and Suburban Drive. It also lists the trail as open daily from sunrise to sunset, with parking and public restrooms at the trailheads. No official page posts live trail conditions, so check the city's social channels before you go if a surface or closure question matters to your plans.
Downtown got its starting point back in June
For almost three years, the downtown section started next to a closed building. A pipe burst at the Seaboard Station Railroad Museum in August 2023, and the flood that followed meant the circa-1885 station needed major repairs. Suffolk Tourism held the reopening and ribbon-cutting on Saturday, June 20, 2026.
The museum is now a reason to start the downtown section there. The Queen Anne-style station has a tower with a walnut spiral staircase. Inside is a two-room HO-scale model of Suffolk in 1907, originally built by the Tidewater Division of the National Model Railroad Association, along with railroad exhibits, a peanut exhibit, a vintage caboose and a gift shop. The layout follows the city as drawn on the 1907 Birdseye View Map and models the six railroads that ran through Suffolk at the time. The paved path you walk away from the station follows one of those old rail corridors.
The museum's hours are listed two different ways. Visit Suffolk lists Sunday through Wednesday from 1 to 5 p.m. and Thursday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The city's reopening release lists the same afternoon block plus Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m., so the two sources disagree about Sunday mornings. Call 757-514-4135 before planning a Sunday visit around it.
The downtown section also has its own layout. TrailLink describes a spur near Cedar Hill Cemetery that runs toward U.S. 58 and the station, and lists 326 N. Main Street as the museum parking address. That puts the trail within a short walk of Main Street. In August 2026, the city announced Cure Coffeehouse's downtown location at 177 N. Main Street. Visit Suffolk's directory lists The General Public, a restaurant at 208 E. Washington Street. On Saturdays, the Suffolk Farmers' Market at 524 N. Main Street runs from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and Visit Suffolk lists its season as running through mid-November. For more on how downtown's fall has been going, see our post on downtown Suffolk's fall calendar.
Suburban Drive is the quick-out-and-back section
The northeast section is the plainest of the three, and that's what it's good for. The city announced it in 2021 as a 1.5-mile paved, ADA-accessible trail from the Suburban Drive trailhead to Nansemond Parkway. The trailhead at 212 Suburban Drive has limited parking, a picnic table and a bicycle repair station. There's no named café or shop near this trailhead in the city or tourism sources, so you come here for the path itself.
A May 2025 TrailLink review of the Suburban-to-Nansemond stretch calls it an easy, flat, paved trail with plenty of shade. The only complaint was parking, with just a few spaces at the trailhead. On a weekend, getting there early may decide whether you find a spot.
This short section also matters more than its length suggests, because Nansemond Parkway is where the next planned build begins. More on that below.
In Driver, the trail and the village share Kings Highway
The Driver section is the longest at 3.5 miles one way, running from the trailhead at 3160 Kings Highway to the Town Point end near the Chesapeake line. Of the three sections, it's the one where the trailhead sits right in a small commercial strip. An August 2025 TrailLink review of a 7.2-mile round trip from Driver toward Pughsville describes the trail as shady and clean, and says tree roots are pushing up the asphalt enough to make the ride bumpy. If you're pushing a stroller or riding narrow road tires, plan for a few rough spots.
The trailhead has a pollinator garden maintained by Suffolk Extension Master Gardeners. Their 2026 page says volunteers work there most every other Monday from March through November and that visitors are welcome. If you're on the trail on one of those Mondays before the season ends in November, you'll likely find the people who know which plants are blooming.
Across Kings Highway there's somewhere new to eat after a ride. The Factory, a deli at 3118 Kings Highway, has a site that says "EST. 2026" and describes a menu of hot-pressed sandwiches. Visit Suffolk lists its hours as Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Those are lunch-only hours, so a morning start from the Kings Highway trailhead is the easiest way to end up there. The Driver Events 2026 business roster also lists The Knot Hole Station at 3129 Kings Highway and Happy Hour Glass Works at 3049 Kings Highway. Some of their directory listings are older, so call before making either one a planned stop.
Driver Days lands on October 17 and 18
The 33rd annual Driver Days Fall Festival is scheduled for Saturday, October 17, and Sunday, October 18. That's two weeks from now. Last year's festival was free and included food, entertainment, train rides, a car show, a parade, a chili cook-off, crafters and vendors. The organizer hasn't posted this year's full program, so check Driver Events closer to the weekend for times and parking details.
Because the trail runs through the village, Driver Days is the one weekend this fall when the busiest section of the trail and the busiest event in Driver are in the same place. Expect the Kings Highway trailhead lot to fill with festival traffic. Parking at the Town Point end and walking in on the trail is one way to avoid that.
What the August funding news means, and when it means it
On August 10, 2026, the Suffolk News-Herald reported that every planned section of the trail now has funding commitments and that the first segments are expected to go to bid in June 2027. Funding is the big step, but nothing is under construction yet. Here's how the next phase lines up on paper:
- The next stretch, past Nansemond Parkway. The Hampton Roads Transportation Planning Organization's project sheet describes Phase 3B as a 1.5-mile, 10-foot-wide asphalt trail from Nansemond Parkway to Pine Tree Way and Cherry Blossom Drive.
- Design is finished. HRTPO's schedule, revised May 21, 2026, shows preliminary engineering completed on March 19, 2026, with right-of-way work running through April 12, 2027.
- Construction is scheduled for April 12, 2027, through July 28, 2028. Those are planned dates, and the News-Herald's June 2027 bid date doesn't line up exactly with an April start. The two may refer to different pieces of the project.
- The section after that. The city's proposed FY2027–2036 capital plan includes $1.5 million in FY2027 grant funding for Phase IIIC, between Nansemond River High School and Pine Tree Way, with no completion date listed.
The phase names aren't consistent across sources. A July 2026 News-Herald photo caption describes Segment III-B as running from Nansemond Parkway to Nansemond River High School and notes $530,177 from HRTPO's transportation alternatives program for that segment. HRTPO's sheet runs the same phase to Pine Tree Way. The direction is the same in every version: north and east from Nansemond Parkway, out from the end of the Suburban Drive section.
So for at least this fall and next, the trail stays in sections. The new work extends the Suburban Drive piece rather than connecting it to downtown or Driver. Each section is still its own trip, starting from its own trailhead.
If you're weighing a home near one of these trailheads, or wondering how the 2027 construction could affect a property along Nansemond Parkway, The Foundry Group follows these Suffolk projects as they move from funding to construction. We'll give you a straight answer on what's built, what's scheduled and what that means for your address. Get Your Free Home Valuation and we'll start there.
