New Parks Trails Under Construction

Lincoln Creek Parkway. Photo by Graham Kilmer.

Two new trails are under construction in Milwaukee, and once finished they will add more than a mile of new trail to the county parks system.

In October, Milwaukee County Parks workers broke ground on two trail projects that have been in the works for years. They will convert a 0.3-mile segment of the Lincoln Creek Parkway and a 0.8-mile segment of the Little Menomonee River Parkway. The trails will contribute to the department’s goal of creating 10 miles of new trail by 2026.

Construction is currently on hiatus for the winter, but work will resume with the spring thaw and the department expects the project will be finished by the end of the season.

In years to come, the Lincoln Creek Parkway trail will form a new bicycle and pedestrian connection between the near north side and downtown Milwaukee. With federal funding in hand, the City of Milwaukee is planning a rails-to-trails extension of the trail, which currently ends in the north near the intersection of W. Capitol Drive and N. 3rd St. The city plans to add another six miles to the trail, bringing it further north to N. 20th and W. Cornell streets.

The existing 3.7-mile Beerline Trail currently runs from W. Capitol Drive south to Gordon Park where it follows the Milwaukee River southwest to W. Pleasant Street and N. Commerce Street.

The two trail conversions have a combined budget of approximately $2.65 million. Parks expects to save money long term with conversion projects, as they are less expensive to rebuild and maintain than roadways, estimating that the two trails will reduce maintenance costs in the parkways by 50%.

The department is responsible for more than 60 miles of roadways and 142 acres of parking lots and it has made an effort to reduce its paved footprint wherever possible to save on maintenance costs that don’t directly support recreation.

Parks has already converted parkway to trail in Greenfield Park and along Underwood Parkway, and the department secured another $10 million for road-to-trail projects in the 2025 budget.

Parks only converts parkways it considers redundant roads, because they do not provide access to anything that can’t be reached on the regular street grid.

Project Maps