Green Bay Trail: Route, Surface and Metra Access on the North Shore

The Green Bay Trail is the North Shore’s rail trail: a path beside the commuter tracks, with a Metra station at every trailhead. It is a chain of village sections, not one managed trail. For the wider network, start at Routes & Trails.

Route

The trail runs parallel to the Metra Union Pacific North line through Wilmette, Kenilworth, Winnetka, Glencoe and Highland Park³. Each town manages its own section².

Surface and access

Most of the trail is paved. The exception is the portion between the Highland Park Metra station and Glencoe, which is primarily crushed stone². The trail is wheelchair accessible, and an elevator at the Winnetka station gives access to it².

There are no bathrooms on the trail itself². Facilities are available at several parks and at many Metra stations along the route².

The Winnetka section

The Winnetka Park District describes its piece as an asphalt path of about 2.24 miles from Kenilworth to Glencoe, paralleling the Metra line¹. A narrow strip of limestone screenings on the east side gives walkers, joggers and bicyclists an alternate surface¹. Mile markers, benches, bike racks, a picnic table and a drinking fountain stand along the trail, as do wildflower gardens¹. The section is open dawn to dusk unless posted otherwise¹.

Access point	Type
Winnetka Avenue	Stairs1
Indian Hill Metra Station	Stairs1
Willow Road	Stairs1
Wilson Avenue and Maple Street	Level path1
Winnetka Metra Station	Stairs1
Pine Street	Sloped path1
Tower Road	Sloped path1
Hubbard Woods Metra Station	Stairs1

If you ride with a cargo bike or a trailer, use a level or sloped entry rather than the stairs¹.

Riding with Metra

Riders can board directly from the trail at Highland Park, Ravinia, Braeside, Glencoe, Hubbard Woods, Winnetka, Indian Hill, Kenilworth and Wilmette². The trail has parking at every trailhead, and each trailhead is also a Metra station². In Highland Park the trail passes through the grounds of the Ravinia Festival².

Glencoe: the restored mile

The Friends of the Green Bay Trail, a nonprofit created in 2010, coordinate environmental stewardship along the trail². The group has raised over a half-million dollars to improve the nearly one-mile portion from Scott Avenue to South Avenue in Glencoe³. Hundreds of families use that stretch each week³.

History

The trail was created in 1965 on the abandoned right-of-way of a former electric railway³. The line was abandoned in 1955, and the right-of-way was leased to the Green Bay Trail Committee for development². In 1965 the city of Winnetka bought the section that crossed it².

Connections

In Highland Park, a multiuse path links the North Branch Trail to the Green Bay Trail at the Braeside Metra station⁵. In August 2014 the North Branch Trail was extended along Lake-Cook Road from the Botanic Garden east to the Green Bay Trail and the Union Pacific North Line at Braeside station⁴. The connecting path is 10 feet wide and a mile long on Garden and Forest Preserves property⁵. From the Braeside platform to the end of the North Branch Trail extension is 0.98 miles⁵.

For a related ride, see the Des Plaines River Trail. For a ride that ends at the lake, see Chicago to Evanston by bike.