(Above photo: Officials at the groundbreaking ceremony included (from left to right) Bike to the Sea Program Manager Agnes Recato, Energy and Environmental Affairs Undersecretary Stephanie Cooper, Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson, MassDOT Transportation Secretary and CEO Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver, Lynn City Councilor Natasha Megie-Maddrey, Lynn City Councilor-at-Large Hong Net, MBTA Board member Thomas M. McGee, Lynn City Councilor-at-Large Nicole McClain, and Lynn City Councilor Obed Matul.)
As ground was officially broken on the last 1.9-mile segment of the Northern Strand Community Trail in Lynn, Bike to the Sea Program Manager Agnes Recato said this isn’t an ending, it’s a new beginning.
About 100 people showed up for the groundbreaking ceremony on a large grassy median strip on the Lynnway near North Shore Community College on Thursday, July 11. The construction project will create a two-way, separated bike lane from Western Avenue through downtown Lynn and the Lynnway to Nahant Beach. It is expected to be completed sometime in 2026.
Lynn Mayor Jared Nicholson hailed the plan as a transit, environmental, recreational, and economic development project. He said, “it helps stitch back together our downtown….to one of our amazing resources here, the Atlantic Ocean.”
For more than 30 years Bike to the Sea has worked at building a trail from Everett, through Malden, Revere, Saugus, and Lynn to the ocean in Nahant. The Northern Strand Community Trail now runs through those towns but ends at Western Avenue, about 1-mile west of downtown Lynn. The plans include extending the trail with curb-separated, on-street bike lanes and sidewalk improvements through downtown Lynn to state-owned parkland at Nahant Beach.
This project is expected to provide safer and improved transportation access for bicyclists and pedestrians.
Other speakers who praised the project included MassDOT Transportation Secretary and CEO Monica Tibbits-Nutt, Energy and Environmental Affairs Undersecretary Stephanie Cooper, and Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver. Speakers thanked everyone involved in this expansive project including the Solomon Foundation, MassDOT, the state Department of Conservation and Recreation, and all of the advocates who turned out to support the project at public meetings.
“This project is a realization of the vision of our organization’s founders and over 30 years of persistence of advocacy,” Recato said.
