Linear Park, a popular Cambridge walking and biking path, will close for improvements starting Monday the 27th. The change will affect up to 1,500 daily users, about a third of them bicyclists, according to a May 2022 count provided by city spokesperson Jeremy Warnick, and will last for as long as 14 months.
The detours will be less than linear: Walkers are directed to use Clifton Street and Whittemore Avenue to go north-south, and Dudley Street and Shea Road east-west, roughly parallel to the path; bicyclists might try Dudley-Shea or Harvey Street and Cameron Avenue east-west, with connections on Clifton or Massachusetts Avenue.
There will also likely be times the path reopens between phases of work, Warnick said.
Signs announcing the closing and detour were posted Tuesday around park entrances by transportation planner Charlie Creagh and a Northeastern coop student with the Department of Transportation, Josiah Lamirand. Construction equipment and materials were also being moved into place in the days ahead of the start date.
The project redesigns and reconstructs a half-mile stretch of 35-year-old Linear Park between Russell Field and the Cambridge-Somerville city line. Changes will include widening the path, new landscaping, a new irrigation and drainage system, adding seating, lighting, art and play structures, water fill stations and emergency call boxes. The cost is estimated at $7.8 million, based on a contract with D’Allesandro of West Bridgewater. In it, the city retains the right to extend the contract.
“We’ll be working to complete the project as soon as possible,” Warnick said Monday, noting that the contract specifies the work be completed by Dec. 31, 2026. Warnick said “progress will depend on weather conditions through the winter. We expect to have a clearer sense of timing early in the new year.”
The project was initially supposed to start in August, Warnick said, but residents concerned that the work would damage trees filed a complaint in court Aug. 6 and won a temporary restraining order Aug. 13. A Middlesex Superior Court judge ruled against the restraining order Sept. 19, letting work go forward.
In preparation for the work, city councillor Ayesha Wilson urged in August that there be good communication in the area to signal to users that the path would close.
“We’re going to probably get dozens of emails that say people didn’t know this area was being shut down,” Wilson said. “This is a throughway that many people use for a variety of different reasons.”
The 14-month timeline is better than city councillors were led to expect over the summer. Linear Park was to close in September for 18 to 24 months, councillors heard at an Aug. 4 meeting from Stephanie Groll, assistant commissioner of transportation planning.
Charlie Teague, who led the August complaint expressing concern for Linear Park trees, said Monday that he would believe the longer timeline over the shorter one. “These contracts always get extended. There’s got to be a gazillion change orders, which slows down everything,” he said in a call.
This post was updated Oct. 22, 2025, to give the contracted price of the project as $7.8 million.
A stronger
Please consider making a financial contribution to maintain, expand and improve Cambridge Day.
We are now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit and all donations are tax deductible.
Please consider a recurring contribution.
Additional, related news:
1. On Monday, a zoning petition by the same Plaintiffs, seeking to make it impossible to improve shared use paths in Cambridge like the Linear Park Project, along with bans of plazas in Cambridge like the Civil War Monument in Cambridge Common, increase lawsuits against the City, etc., (see https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/ZoningDevel/Amendments/2025/bakaletal/20250923_CDDMemo_Bakal_etal.pdf ) received a unanimous 9-0 vote against adoption from Cambridge City Council.
2. On Tuesday, MA Appeals Court sided with Cambridge, against Plaintiffs, seeking to undo the Middlesex Superior Court’s ruling against the denial of a Preliminary Injunction. https://www.ma-appellatecourts.org/docket/2025-J-0752
3. As of today, in Middlesex Superior Court, no response yet from Plaintiffs regarding Cambridge’s Motion to Dismiss that was posted 9/30/2025.
Just because city “spokes-people”[ah-ha!] and the CDD bicycle ideologues who have pushed through this execrable plan label it “improvements” (as, of course, they always do) does not make it so. Nor should a supposedly independent – and hopefully critically minded – press have to mouth the endless, self-serving, propaganda of an unelected rogue government, unaccountable to the people who actually live here, and along Linear Park. Many residents expressed well founded objections to this expensive plan, centered on the fact that widening the paved path will simply allow bicyclists to go even faster than they already do, while others carefully documented the risk to existing healthy trees, despite the false claims to the contrary. It will also no longer be a sanctuary from the busy urban hurly-burly envisioned in the original design. They don’t care. It’s always all about whatever bicyclists want in Cambridge. (As long as they label it “improvements.”)
Save the Planet –
Destroy the Park.
“I don’t want anything to change” is not a well-founded objection.
The Linear Park improvements are designed to enhance safety, accessibility, and environmental resilience for everyone, not just cyclists. The city has incorporated feedback from arborists and community groups to protect mature trees, replant native species, and improve soil health.
Far from ending the park’s role as a green refuge, the redesign strengthens it with stormwater management and ecological restoration. These updates reflect inclusive planning. It balances active transportation, environmental stewardship, and equitable access.
Hyperbole like “destroy” just shows how far the anti-change crowd has drifted from reality.
From the start, the 1984 MBTA lease to Cambridge *mandates* bike access to the shared use path (SUP), no matter how much this legal requirement upsets the bike haters. So, 2 different Judges ruled against these frivolous lawsuits.
Federal AASHTO and FHWA standards give the current SUP width at current usage levels a grade of “D” or “E”. MA DCR standards state “Under most conditions it is desirable to increase the width of a shared use path to 12 feet, or even 14 feet to accommodate substantial use by bicycles, joggers, skaters, and pedestrians”.
Meanwhile, the project plants over 150 trees, fixes the (10+ year broken) irrigation system to protect the existing and new trees, greatly improves the soils (loosing compacted soil, replacing poor quality soil with high quality horticultural soil) to protect the existing and new trees, creates permeable side paths to reduce pedestrians and bikes from going off-path which compacts soils and damages the existing and new trees.
A win for all👍
Technically, the photo was not taken on the Linear Path; it’s on the Somerville Community Path, near the Thorndike Street exit, which is the last one before the Cambridge border (but many hundreds of feet away).