On June 8, 2026, two people from St. Paul's Church came to the Lynnfield Select Board with a request. Reverend Rob Bacon and Senior Warden Kwame Ofori-Asante asked the board to hold off on a vote. They wanted time for the church vestry to review a temporary construction easement at 127 Summer Street and send it to the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts. Their concerns were specific: safety guidelines for Bethlehem Preschool, fencing requirements, and keeping access to the church's back parking lot through the MBTA lease the town was about to sign.
The board agreed. It planned a short Zoom meeting later that month to approve the easements once the vestry had reviewed the terms. The town had already reached an agreement concerning 130 Summer Street.
That meeting shows what was holding up the Lynnfield Rail Trail near the end. By then the design was mostly settled. What remained was a church parking lot, one property's frontage, and the backyards that already run up against the old railbed.
The Final Pieces Were Agreements With Neighbors
The Lynnfield Weekly News reported in August that the Select Board had voted in June to take temporary easements by eminent domain at 127 and 130 Summer Street. Rob Dolan called those easements the "critical final pieces." Town Administrator Dolan and DPW Director John Scenna had told the board that MassDOT needed them by July 1 to keep the project in the August bid cycle.
At the same meeting, the board voted unanimously to approve and sign the lease with the MBTA. The minutes describe it as a 99-year lease. Town Meeting first authorized it in 2017, and Dolan told the board the MBTA review alone took nine months.
The town's December 2025 update gave the same explanation for an earlier delay. It said Phase 1 construction had slipped about a year from the December 2024 estimate. The main reasons were the many Conservation Commission hearings needed to address public comments, settling access at Nichols Lane in Peabody, and fitting the project into MassDOT's bidding and construction schedule.
The Town Left Existing Encroachments in Place
The town made one design decision that matters most to anyone whose yard backs onto the corridor. The December 2025 update says the trail "has been designed to avoid physical impacts to existing abutter encroachments on the MBTA property," and that the town expects the MBTA to let those encroachments stay.
That update does not say how many encroachments exist, what they are, or where they sit along the corridor. The lease agreement between the MBTA and the Town of Lynnfield appears as an attachment in the MassDOT bid package, which is the document that governs the corridor going forward.
The town's own wording is that it "anticipates" the MBTA will allow the encroachments to remain. That is an expectation the town has stated, not a written permission an owner can show a buyer. The planned path itself is a 12-foot-wide asphalt surface with two-foot grass shoulders, so its footprint is modest compared with the full width of the corridor.
The Privacy Screening Is Still Undecided
With the route and the lease settled, the main question left for abutters is what will stand between the path and their yards.
Here is how the screening question has developed so far:
- September 2024. Stantec told the Select Board that its 75% design plans included 3,800 feet of screening fence in the cost estimate. MassDOT had to approve it, and Lynnfield said it would contact affected residents after MassDOT decided.
- March 19, 2025. At a Conservation Commission hearing, a resident read a prepared statement about privacy and fencing. Daniel Card of 3 Ford Avenue raised concerns about flooding and drainage after tree removal. The project team said plantings would go in at the Ford Avenue entrance.
- May 20, 2025. A project-team email described possible 3- to 4-foot understory plantings. Those were proposed to make up for tree removal, not as a privacy screen.
- October 7, 2025. The state awarded Lynnfield an additional $100,000 MassTrails grant for Phase 1, the third major MassTrails award for the project. The town said the money will pay for engineering services during construction and let it "consider additional privacy screening that has been requested by some abutters."
The town's December 2025 update does not describe a final screening plan: whether it will be fence or plantings, which stretches it will cover, or how individual properties will be chosen. At a November 25, 2025 meeting, the project team listed "evaluation of options for privacy screening for Rail Trail abutters" among its outstanding items.
What Phase 1 Is and When It Is Scheduled
Phase 1 is 1.8 miles of paved trail from Nichols Lane in Peabody to Ford Avenue in Lynnfield. MassDOT's project description includes road crossings at Summer Street and Pillings Pond Road, connecting paths, benches, interpretive signs, and bike racks.
Bids opened on the state's COMMBUYS system at 2 p.m. on August 25, 2026, and the solicitation was marked closed that afternoon. The listed estimate for the project is $4,894,000. That figure is MassDOT's estimate, not a bid amount, and the solicitation page does not name a contractor.
Select Board Chair Alexis Leahy described the August milestone this way:
"This milestone now officially transitions us from design into the preconstruction phase of the project. We hope to have a contractor on board by November and a construction schedule shortly thereafter."
The town's published schedule has two dates left:
- November 2026: MassDOT issues the contractor its notice to proceed with construction.
- July 2028: Phase 1 construction is complete.
Some earlier dates in that schedule slipped. The December 2025 update expected the MBTA lease to be signed in March 2026, and the Select Board approved it on June 8. The bid advertisement went out July 25, as planned.
The trail is not open yet. The official project materials do not list trailheads, parking, or rules for dogs and e-bikes, so it is too early to say how anyone will get onto the path at a given street.
Phase 2 and Reedy Meadow Are Further Off
The full plan is a 2.8-mile path and boardwalk from Peabody through Lynnfield into Wakefield, with views of Reedy Meadow. Phase 2 is the stretch that reaches the meadow. It covers about one mile of paved trail and boardwalk from Ford Avenue to Fosters Lane in Wakefield, and Wakefield's section would continue another 1.6 miles to Galvin Middle School.
MassDOT lists Phase 2 as still in preliminary design. The town has said Phase 2 is waiting on revised wetlands regulations from the state Department of Environmental Protection. Those rules were last expected in spring 2025, and as of the December 2025 update, DEP had not posted a schedule change since February 2025.
So for now, the trail will end at Ford Avenue. That is also the spot where Daniel Card raised drainage questions at the March 2025 hearing and where the project team promised plantings.
The People Who Got It This Far
The Friends of the Lynnfield Rail Trail have worked on the project since 2017, and the town's Recreational Path Committee goes back 25 years. In an August letter to the Lynnfield Weekly News, Friends president Vincent Inglese thanked Project Manager John Scenna, Town Administrator Rob Dolan, the Select Board, Conservation Commission and Planning Board director Emilie Cademartori, retired engineer Rich Kosian, design firm Stantec, Sen. Brendan Crighton, and Rep. Bradley Jones. Inglese described the finished trail as an ADA-compliant, off-road path for all ages and abilities.
If your property backs onto the old MBTA corridor, the agreements behind this project can affect your property line, from the temporary Summer Street easements to the encroachments the town expects the MBTA to leave in place. Nikki Palladino's 29 years as a paralegal on real estate matters help her spot boundary and title questions early, before a sale or refinance depends on them. If you'd like to walk through what the rail trail means for your property, Nikki Palladino is glad to help. Let's Connect.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
