A bike commute from the North Shore? Possible!
All you need is time and stamina — and a shower at work
The notion of commuting to downtown Boston on your bike from the North Shore has long been ensnared in that old New England adage: You can’t get there from here. After all, the three main conduits into the city — the Tobin Bridge and the Ted Williams and Sumner tunnels — ban bikes.
Could the temporary closing of the Sumner provide an opportunity to look at a two-wheeled option?
SALEM TO NORTH STATION (includes Salem/Marblehead Rail Trail and Northern Strand Trail) 22.6 miles, 2 hours
Don’t let that semi-inverted marathon distance deter you. If you have the time and the stamina (and a shower at work), this route — mostly flat and mostly trail — delivers what Route 1A could never promise: a concoction of fresh air, vigorous exercise, and more than a few dollops of delight. And if you live farther south, in the Lynn/Revere/Malden/Everett corridor, the last half of this trip on the aboutto-be completed Northern Strand offers a mostly direct and often scenic route.
The Salem trailhead is across from prominent Sammy’s Roast Beef, a few blocks south of the heart of the city. The trail parallels the commuter rail before slicing through Salem State University, crossing Route 114 at the picturesque mouth of Salem Harbor, and jutting into the clawed peninsula of Marblehead along a dirt path through an estuary. (Yes, as in a few other places on this route, you could take a shortcut that dumps you into traffic, in this case busy 114, before regaining the trail, but the aggravation overwhelms the pedals saved.)
On the trail, make sure you take a right when the Marblehead branch enters, at a utility yard. If it’s before 8, you’ll be slaloming through scattering bunnies; after 9, it’s mostly walkers with leashed dogs or baby carriages or both. Puddles form easily, and the recent rains have made patches of the trail rough. Hybrids outperform road bikes here.
The trail ends at Bradlee Avenue in Swampscott, two blocks from your
main road, Atlantic Avenue heading south. Atlantic feeds into Humphrey Street and, eventually, Lynn Shore Drive and becomes arguably the most picturesque and perilous part of the route. To your left, the light skips across the ocean, with Nahant Beach in the distance and Boston’s skyline beyond. On your right, however, is a line of parked vehicles. There is an unseparated bike lane for most of Humphrey Street and Lynn Shore Drive, yet you’ll do well to pay more attention to the parked cars — and the potential for a car door flung into your path — than to the resplendent water views.
Looking to expand your exercise? Zip around the Nahant rotary and go for a swim at Nahant Beach. (Changing rooms in DCR bathhouse.)
After the rotary, you’ll be in for some urban riding, Lynnway to Market Street to North Common. Pick up the Northern Strand Trail just past Lynn Common and a Market Basket.
The first mile or so is slow-and-go, with plenty of street crossings. It soon opens up to the Saugus River estuary. Even at low tide on a stuffy July morning, this elevated area was refreshingly bracing. Snowy egrets did their morning chores below; swallows swooped above.
In Saugus, batches of one-eyed Susans line much of the trail. New playgrounds have been ingeniously incorporated along parts of the trail, which also passes well-maintained parks and ballfields. Yet, kids on a bike, or on the ballfields for that matter, are all too rare.
As you approach the 9.5-mile trail’s halfway point, a blast of colors on a mural, creatively painted on a corrugated wall, celebrates the region’s heritage. You’ll skim the estuaries of the Rumney Marsh Reservation in Revere to Malden.
Malden is urban but surprisingly uncongested for the most part. Wildflowers and butterflies line the first part of the path, which parallels a city artery, Eastern Avenue. Blocks of neighborhood flower and vegetable gardens follow (along with one discordant, fencedoff, and wildly overgrown “hazardous materials” section).
Even a mini-library exchange box beckons.
You’ll need to zig and zag across several streets near the mural homage to native artist Frank Stella at Malden High. The path and crosswalks are well marked.
The last mile or so of the trail needs one last paving, with an official opening set for this fall. Until then, you are urged to exit on West Street, then Route 99, just before Sweetser Circle. Once the trail is fully opened, it will end at the gardens of Encore Boston Harbor casino.
You’ll need to quickly shift attitude and awareness once off the trail: Route 99 South is this region’s version of the streets of Pamplona during the Running of the Bulls. Instead of 1,500pound behemoths snorting past you, 18-wheelers whiz by, within arm’s length. The barely perceptible unseparated bike lane on the Alford Street bridge over the Mystic River is wide, but debris and rim-rattling ruts await. Nowhere on this trip will you feel more vulnerable, that is until you get, almost immediately, to the harrowing Sullivan Square. You’ll be tempted to dismount and walk on what hints at being crosswalks.
Your arrival at Main Street in Charlestown will be accompanied by a deep, well-earned exhale. This street is a gem, with a village-like feel. Rowhouses and small shops and restaurants pass; traffic is slow and steady.
The entry to downtown Boston depends on the workplace. A route across the North Washington Street Bridge and around the North End takes you on separated lanes along Commercial Street, ending at the Rose Kennedy Greenway. You can also bomb down Paul Revere Park, dismount, and walk across the Charles River dam and locks. It doesn’t take a gearhead to appreciate the inner workings of this waterway readjustment. After the crossing, you will be next to North Station.
For the nightmare of 99, at least partial relief may be around a bend or two or three. Jonah Chiarenza, executive director of Bike to the Sea, points to a proposed bike/pedestrian bridge over the Mystic River, connecting the casino to Assembly Row MBTA Station. The bridge, backed by the state and the casino, is in the design stage. A bike path through Draw Seven State Park would bring you back onto 99 in Charlestown.
Boston has a long-term plan to add bike lanes from the Alford Street bridge to downtown along Rutherford Avenue, said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, chief of streets for the city of Boston, in an email. But that won’t happen for at least three years. In the meantime, Bike to the Sea is pushing officials to install flexible posts separating traffic from that mirage serving as a bike lane over the Mystic.
The group also has plans to extend Northern Strand the other way, to the Nahant rotary.
A COUPLE OF CHEATS
If you want to skip the nasty Route 99 patch, you can hop on the Orange Line at the Malden Center stop, a few blocks from Malden High, along Centre Street. But bikes are allowed on trains only after rush hour (10 a.m.).
The Northern Strand is so inviting, it’s difficult to recommend skipping it, but the Lynn Ferry (off the Lynnway) is sublime and bike-friendly. Park your bike on the bow; park yourself on the top deck and let the wind and the views transport you into a realm of relaxation. Watch for ospreys atop their nests on channel markers, starboard side, then pick out the Harbor Islands and lighthouses off the port side.
The entry to the port of Boston is the most mesmerizing of any on the East Coast.
You wouldn’t get an argument on that from Brigid Welber, a nurse at Tuft’s Medical Center in Chinatown.
“It’s amazing; crazy, just crazy good,” Welber said recently on the 9 a.m. ferry as she sipped her free coffee. Welber bikes from Marblehead to the ferry, then 12 minutes from Long Wharf to her workplace. “Boston commuters are so beleaguered, so stressed by their commute ... and so many of us do not realize just how beautiful this is.
“You arrive at work,’’ she said, “10 degrees happier.”