When Itemlive covered Willis Woods last December, the photo at the top of the story showed a man walking his dogs down a wide, flat path through the trees. That path used to be a railroad. A month before the photo ran, it was a strip of old rail bed that a fire truck couldn't use.
That path is where the trail project the town has now put out to bid begins. Lynnfield isn't building a trail network from nothing in its northwestern corner. Phase one hangs new trails off that rebuilt rail bed. If you want to see the plan before anything gets cut, park at the Woodlot on upper Main Street and walk out to it.
A Fire Road First, a Walking Path Second
Itemlive reported that Middleton's Bostik, Inc. finished the path in November 2025, working with the Lynnfield, Middleton, and North Reading fire departments. Bostik hired and paid a private paving company to pull out the remaining sections of rail and compact the rail bed so it could carry heavy vehicles.
The reason was emergency access. Itemlive's story says Willis Woods has seen several brush fires and medical emergencies over the years. The only bridge across the Ipswich River, in North Reading, can't be certified for heavy equipment, so before the path was built, crews could only reach the southern part of the woods on foot or in small vehicles. Lynnfield Fire Chief Glenn Davis told the paper that "this new access will allow improved safety to the adjacent properties."
The same article says the path also gives people recreational access to the woods. Walkers got a wide, level route through the middle of Willis Woods as a side effect of a fire-safety project.
Whose Woods You're Standing In
Most of Willis Woods isn't town conservation land. The town's Willis Woods trail map, revised in July 2024, lists three adjoining holdings:
| Holding | Size on the 2024 map | Owner and status |
|---|---|---|
| Bennett Keenan Conservation Area | 23 acres | Town conservation land |
| Lynnfield Woodlot | 21 acres | Essex County Greenbelt Association |
| Watershed land | 547 acres | Lynnfield Center Water District, open under a revocable intermunicipal agreement |
That watershed land is about nine-tenths of the acreage on the map, and it's open to the public by agreement, not by right. The map asks visitors to stay on existing trails and keep clear of water-supply infrastructure. That request reads differently once you know whose land the trail crosses.
Sources don't agree on the total size. The three holdings on the map add up to 591 acres. Itemlive put the whole area at more than 600 acres, and the Lynnfield Villager article the town reposted in April called it "700-acre plus." The likely reason is that the woods run past Lynnfield's line. Itemlive describes Willis Woods as spreading across Lynnfield, Middleton, Peabody, and North Reading, with a mix of private and municipal owners. Bostik owns a parcel in Middleton between the Peabody Independence Greenway and the water district's section.
What Phase One Hangs Off the Rail Bed
In April 2026, Town Meeting approved $30,000 in capital funding for the first phase of the Willis Woods Trail Development Project. On October 6, the town posted the invitation to bid and described the finished project as a free, public, three-mile regional network made up of five trails.
OSRWG member Rich Kosian, speaking to the Lynnfield Villager in April, described how the first three trails fit together. OSRWG is the Open Space and Recreation Working Group. In his description, the rail corridor is the reference point:
- East Line Trail runs from Lynnfield Woodlot to the former Salem–Lowell Railroad corridor.
- Riverside Trail loops from the railroad corridor along the Ipswich River and back to the corridor.
- South Side Trail connects the Woodlot to the future Willis Brook Trail.
Two of the three trails start or end at the rail bed that Bostik just made usable. The town's full request for proposals, dated September 23, 2026, makes the contracted base work narrower than the April description: new construction on East Line and Riverside, plus minor maintenance on South Side, which already exists. The three total about 1.46 miles. Work in wetlands needs a Conservation Commission permit.
The RFP also sets the trail standard. The paths will be natural surface, mostly single-lane, and 24 to 36 inches wide. Typical grades run 3 to 12 percent, with some stretches as steep as 25 percent. That's narrow, and that's intentional. Under the new plan, the wide, level rail bed serves as the main route, and the narrow trails lead off it toward the river and back to the Woodlot.
The Half Still on Paper
The other two named trails are in the RFP as an optional task, to be built only if funding allows. Willis Brook and Glen Drive together add about 1.5 miles. The listed deliverables include 14 steps at the start of the Riverside Trail, bog bridges on the wet parts of East Line and Glen Drive, and two bridges over Willis Brook, about 10 and 22 feet long.
Planning Board Vice Chair Amy MacNulty, who also sits on the OSRWG, told the Villager that future trails "would complete a larger loop trail network that follows Willis Brook back to Lynnfield Woodlot with a spur to Glen Drive," and that "funding and scheduling for the future phases will depend on community support."
Timing is open-ended. Sealed bids were due at 11 a.m. on Thursday, October 15, 2026. The RFP requires the winning bidder to start within ten days of a notice to proceed, but the number of work days on the bid form is blank, so there's no fixed completion date. MacNulty told the Villager that depending on bid prices, volunteers working with a trail firm could do some of the construction.
The project has been five years in the making. Kosian traced it to a July 2021 technical assistance grant from the Metropolitan Area Planning Council and an initial trail plan in 2023. In 2025 the town applied for a Phase 1 grant and didn't get it, and the working group took the project on after that. The $30,000 was one line in an FY27 capital budget totaling $1,935,000, which Town Meeting took up as Article 9.
Walking It This November
Everything phase one will connect is already on the ground. Here's how to reach it, based on the town's 2024 map. That map predates the Bostik path, so what you find on the rail bed now is in better shape than the map suggests.
- Easiest start: The Lynnfield Woodlot lot off Main Street, which has off-street parking. The Woodlot's marked trail is an easy 0.8 miles.
- Into the watershed land: The entrance at Glen Drive, with on-street parking there and on Friendship Lane. The water district's cart paths run for several miles but aren't improved or marked, so bring a map.
- From the north: The bridge off Elm Street in North Reading, with on-street parking on MacIntyre Drive.
- The spine: The map shows a 1.3-mile section of the former Salem–Lowell railroad bed. That's the stretch Bostik compacted and the line the new East Line and Riverside trails will tie into.
The rules are simple. Conservation properties are open dawn to dusk, with no motorized vehicles, no fires, and no hunting. On September 30, 2026, the town's Conservation office reposted its reminder that fall hunting is prohibited on all Lynnfield conservation areas and Lynnfield Center Water District property, citing Town Code Chapter 320, Article II. If you see hunters on town or water district land, call the Massachusetts Environmental Police at 1-800-632-8075. For dogs, the town's dog code requires a dog off its owner's property to be on a leash or under the owner's control, including responding to spoken or visual commands. In the listed public areas, owners have to carry pickup gear and remove waste. I'm passing these rules along as general information, not legal advice. If you have a question about your own situation, ask the town.
Kosian told the Villager that Lynnfield's nature trails usually need little maintenance and that the working group organizes volunteers for small repairs, downed trees, and trash cleanups. The RFP also makes the contractor responsible for supervising volunteer labor. If you'd like to help build the loop MacNulty described, the Planning and Conservation Department is where that group works from.
I've worked in these towns since 1991. If you live near upper Main Street or Glen Drive and wonder how a finished trail network next door might change your street, I'm happy to talk it through over coffee, with no listing pitch. Reach out to Jodi Fitzgerald and schedule a free consultation. You can see more of what I've written about this town on my Lynnfield page.
