Ongoing Northern Strand Trail Closures

Trail segments from Lincoln Ave in Saugus to Summer St in Lynn are currently under construction. Accessibility varies daily. For planning purposes please anticipate using City/Town roads around these portions of the trail

As part of the ongoing construction along the Northern Strand, Bridge 1 (the longer of the 3 bridges, located in Saugus near Boston Street) has been totally closed since 5/18/20. Additionally segments between Lincoln Ave and Central St in Saugus are now closed as well and should be avoided, and the new “Community Path of Lynn” segments are not formally open to the public.

What’s no longer accessible?

Fencing and signage are placed to prevent access, and any public on the trail heading north on the Northern Strand at the Saugus side of the bridge will need to turn around to come off of the trail at Lincoln Ave in Saugus. Similarly, in Lynn there will be no public access to the trail (north or south) from Boston Street, and any public coming from the north-east to travel south towards Saugus and Revere will have to use City/Town roads before picking up the trail at Lincoln Ave in Saugus.

Some other recent closures may or may not also prevent access at other points of the trail (see above).

When will things re-open?

The bridge and various other trailheads will remain closed for a minimum of several months as bridge construction and paving gets underway. Once torn up, Revere, Saugus, and Lynn segments of the trail are not likely to formally re-open until sometime in 2021.

Are there detours?

There are no plans for formal detours and there aren’t any roads nearby that compare with the safety trail users experience on the Northern Strand. All alternative routes share space with automobiles (no bike lanes) or have bumpy sidewalks on the sides of the roads. We recommend applying large doses of caution whenever people share roads with cars, particularly in Revere, Saugus, and Lynn since those town roads do not have any common safety features or infrastructure for alternative forms of transportation that can be found in other parts of the Boston area, like Somerville, Cambridge, and Downtown Boston.

All that said, we’ve chosen what we think is the safest recommended detour out of all the alternative route options, and have created a digital route people can use to help people get/from Everett/Nahant Beach. Feel free to download it and use it with your phone or smart watch (we recommend the RideWithGPS app (paid) or BikeGPX app (free):

*Note: Having trouble using RideWithGPS? Consider using BikeGPX instead – it’s free and after downloading the app just go here and scan the QR code or copy and paste this URL (https://ridewithgps.com/routes/32703583) and start your route.

If you would like more ideas for where to walk, ride, or get outside during the active construction on the Northern Strand, please see more detours and alternative ride destinations.