People planned for 2045
303,438
+67,638 over 2023. About 242,250 live here today.
Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan; OFM 2026 estimate
Bellingham Bay to Mount Baker · A 74-mile plan for the county network
One trail.
Every town.
Finish Bay to Baker and link it to Lynden, Ferndale and Birch Bay. A connected trail network would give Whatcom County more ways to reach work, school and the outdoors. This citizen-mapped proposal shows where those connections could go.
Mount Baker · footage by Greg Thames on Pexels
01 · Why now
Growth spreads out. Jobs concentrate in Bellingham.
The county’s preliminary 2023–2045 allocations plan for 67,600 more people—more than half outside Bellingham—and most new jobs in Bellingham. Without better connections, that pattern risks making more daily trips dependent on a car.
New residents outside Bellingham
55%
About 37,300 people, planned for the other towns and rural lands.
Whatcom County Resolution 2025-011
New jobs inside Bellingham
60%
19,384 of the 32,349 new jobs planned countywide.
Whatcom County Resolution 2025-011
New residents planned for Ferndale
10,961
More than Lynden and Blaine combined.
Whatcom County Resolution 2025-011
New residents and new jobs, 2023–2045
New residents New jobs
Area Chart Residents Jobs
Bellingham city + UGA 30,310 19,384
Ferndale city + UGA 10,961 3,337
Rural & resource lands 9,000 3,403
Lynden city + UGA 6,665 1,799
Blaine city + UGA 3,500 1,092
Birch Bay UGA 2,662 450
Everson city + UGA 1,408 602
Columbia Valley UGA 1,137 350
Sumas city + UGA 1,000 500
Nooksack city + UGA 995 232
02 · The cost of waiting
Car dependence has a cost.
The leaders who’d build this have already named the problem. In 2023 every elected executive in the region (the county, all seven cities, the tribes and the port) signed on to a Safe Streets for All action plan.
80%
of daily trips in the region are made by car or truck. Work trips are nearly all solo: 1.17 people per vehicle in Bellingham, 1.32 in the rest of the county.
WCOG 2018 regional travel study
+200,000
more vehicle trips a day forecast by 2045, up 38%. Unincorporated county sees the biggest jump in miles driven.
WCOG, Way to Go, Whatcom
~3%
of trips are by transit. Lynden has one hourly bus route, and WTA ended the Lynden Hop because each trip cost over $60.
Cascadia Daily News; Lynden Tribune
19
people died in traffic crashes in Whatcom County in 2023. Bellingham’s mayor called the rising rate of pedestrian and cyclist deaths especially alarming.
Cascadia Daily News; WCOG Safe Streets for All
25 min
is the average commute from the Lynden, Ferndale and Blaine area, against 19 minutes in greater Bellingham.
American Community Survey via Data USA
16 years
and still unbuilt: the top priority of the county’s 2010 Pedestrian & Bicycle Plan, a connection between Bellingham, Lummi and Ferndale.
Whatcom County Pedestrian & Bicycle Plan, 2010
Ferndale to downtown Bellingham
About ten miles. A distance easily covered by bike, yet today the road is the only option.
Bellingham Bay · footage by Greg Thames on Pexels
03 · The spine
The railroad already chose the route.
Bay to Baker follows the grade of the old Bellingham Bay & British Columbia Railroad, later the Milwaukee Road. Trains needed gentle slopes, so the line threads the valleys: north through Everson to Sumas, then around Sumas Mountain to Kendall and Maple Falls. Between the built pieces it never climbs more than about 600 ft. Scroll to ride it.
MP 0.0
Bellingham
The built trail climbs from Little Squalicum Park up Squalicum Creek. Past that, the old rail bed runs northeast through farmland toward Hannegan and Dewey roads.
Status First mile built · next miles in acquisition
MP —
Goshen
A spur once split here for Deming and Welcome. Much of the grade has gone back to farmland, and in places it became the road. Those are the stretches where landowner conversations will matter most.
Status Unbuilt · mostly private land
MP —
Everson
A short piece of the trail is already open in Everson. It shows the trail can get built a town at a time.
Status Short segment built
MP —
Sumas
North of Everson the original line is still working BNSF track. Here the trail runs beside the rails, a rail-with-trail, to Sumas, where the old branch turned east toward the mountains.
Status Beside active track · needs a railroad agreement
MP —
Kendall
The grade curves through the Columbia Valley on the north side of Sumas Mountain. The planned Kendall Trail along SR 547 would connect the valley to this route; the next stretch continues toward Horseshoe Bend.
Status In planning · funded east of Kendall
MP —
Maple Falls
The built Maple Falls–Glacier segment starts here: wide, forested and well used. Beyond Glacier, the 74-mile plan continues to the Mount Baker Ski Area on logging roads and other existing corridors.
Status Built east toward Glacier
Then connect every town to it.
The spine is only the start. The next step is a set of connections and loops reaching the towns west of the line.
See the networkBuilt so far
13 of 74 mi
TrailLink; Whatcom County Parks
Gap, Bellingham to Maple Falls
35.9 mi
This project’s routed line
Of that gap on the old rail grade
58%
OpenStreetMap historic rail
Private landowners the line crosses
266
Whatcom County Assessor parcels
Years of plans since the rail line closed
~50
Cascadia Daily News, Jan 2026
Elevation along the proposed line
04 · Beyond Bay to Baker
Town to town, not just in town.
Five proposed links turn Bay to Baker into a network. They reuse the existing Nooksack River Trail, follow the river and the shore, and go around the Lummi Reservation unless the Lummi Nation chooses to partner.
Nooksack Loop
45.6 mi
Bellingham · Everson · Lynden · Ferndale · Nooksack River Trail · Bellingham
Birch Bay Coastal Loop
68.7 mi
Bellingham · Everson · Lynden · Ferndale · Birch Bay · Cherry Point · Bellingham
05 · Already moving
This is winnable. The pieces are in motion.
A planning grant, a dedicated trail planner and local acquisition work are tangible steps forward. Other grant programs offer possible next steps, not a fully funded network.
Momentum
- $475,000 Sandy Williams grant (late 2025) to plan and engineer Bay to Baker from Kendall to Horseshoe Bend. A consultant was selected in summer 2026.
- The county hired a dedicated multimodal trail planner.
- WSDOT is designing the Kendall Trail along SR 547, Columbia Valley to Kendall, to become a Bay to Baker spur.
- Bellingham has a Greenways levy and bought the Hannegan Road parcel in 2024 to extend its segment toward Dewey Road.
Whatcom County Parks, July 2026 update; Cascadia Daily News
Potential funding sources
- Sandy Williams Connecting Communities (WSDOT), now permanent at $12.5M a year. Awards run about $200K to $2M and can match federal RAISE and Safe Streets for All grants.
- WSDOT Pedestrian & Bicyclist Program: about $23M for 2025–27.
- Safe Streets for All implementation funds, unlocked by the regional safety action plan.
- RCO trail grants and Bellingham’s Greenways levy.
WSDOT; RCO
Trail recreation in Whatcom’s economy
$150M a year
Statewide, every $1 spent on outdoor recreation generates $1.31.
RCO / ECONorthwest; Earth Economics 2025
06 · The working map
Every parcel, every mile.
Compare the proposed routes, the parcels they cross and the growth areas they could serve. The map brings the route choices and their trade-offs into one place.
| Route | Miles | On old grade | New trail | Public land | Landowners crossed |
|---|
07 · Fair questions
Fair questions, straight answers.
Nobody’s going to bike 15 miles to work.
Not everyone needs to ride the full distance for a connection to be useful. A continuous route also serves shorter trips to school, shops and neighboring towns, with e-bikes extending the range for some riders. It would complement cars and transit, not replace every commute.
Growth is slowing.
Slower growth is already part of the forecast. Leland Consulting Group’s May 2024 technical report projects a declining growth rate and presents low, middle and high scenarios. Those are planning assumptions, not guarantees; a slower pace still leaves time to secure connections before development makes them harder.
What about farmland and property rights?
An old rail grade does not by itself establish public access. Private-land connections would need agreements with landowners, and tribal participation must be decided by the tribes. A line on this map is a proposal, not permission to enter property.
Who pays for upkeep?
Upkeep needs its own budget and a named operator for each segment. Local funding and volunteer stewardship could contribute, but a construction grant alone does not settle who maintains the trail. This proposal does not yet assign those responsibilities.
Isn’t the county already doing this?
Yes. The county and cities are advancing individual segments. This citizen project adds a countywide view of the missing links and their landownership trade-offs; it does not replace official planning, engineering or public consultation.
08 · How we mapped it
Open data, shown work.
Ownership
Every tax parcel within 500 m of each route comes from the Whatcom County Assessor’s public parcel service. We classify owners as public, tribal or private, and count the landowners each line actually crosses.
Routing
Routes are planned across the land itself, not along roads. Running beside highways, crossing buildings, steep grades and unbridged rivers all count against a route. The old rail grade, existing trails, the riverbank, the shoreline and public land all count in its favor.
Limits
These are planning lines, not surveyed alignments. Ownership comes from tax records, not title searches. This is a citizen project, not an official county or city plan. It’s meant to start conversations.
Map and routing: Whatcom County Assessor parcels · OpenStreetMap contributors (roads, trails, historic rail, coastline, reservation boundaries) · AWS Terrain Tiles elevation · Cascadia Daily News, Jan 2026 · BB&BC Railroad history
Growth, travel and funding: Whatcom County Resolution 2025-011 (growth allocations) · Whatcom County Comprehensive Plan FEIS · OFM / KAFE 2026 population estimate · WCOG “Way to Go, Whatcom” · Data USA (ACS) · Cascadia Daily News (WTA ridership; 2023 crash deaths) · Lynden Tribune · WCOG Safe Streets for All · TrailLink · Whatcom County Parks (July 2026 commission update) · Salish Current · RCO / ECONorthwest · Earth Economics · WSDOT · NITC e-bike survey via Electric Bike Report. Forecast context: Leland Consulting Group, “Population and Employment: Growth Projections and Preliminary Allocations,” May 22, 2024 (technical scenarios preceding the 2025 allocations shown above).
09 · Get involved
Trails get built when people show up.
The Recreation Northwest Trails Coalition is the region’s trails voice and already works with Whatcom County Parks. Add your voice to theirs, show up at the next public input meeting, and bring this map along.
Footage by ArtHouse Studio on Pexels