The trail, created to give people a new walking and cycling route across Cambridge, is now used by almost 4,000 people on busy days, an increase of nearly a third since last year. In 2025, there were 30,000 journeys by bike and 12,000 by pedestrians – that’s over 40,000 journeys that might have otherwise been by car.
Delivered by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) in December 2021, the trail connects Cambridge North to Coldham’s Lane, via the Abbey Chesterton bridge and Newmarket Road underpass. The 40ft bridge was installed in 2020, and the new underpass was installed in just seven days during 2021.
Cllr Brian Milnes, Chair of the Greater Cambridge Partnership, said: “The Chisholm Trail is a great example of what the GCP is doing; making it easier for everyone to travel sustainably into Cambridge, and it keeps on delivering – every year the numbers of people using it are going up and up. It’s been a great success, and not only it is providing an easy and safe route into Cambridge, but it’s helping people keep fit and healthy too.”
The route is mostly off-road and traffic-free and will eventually take people all the way to Cambridge Central station. From there, people can use other active travel routes to reach the Cambridge Biomedical Campus – meaning there will be a direct route from the science parks in the north to the south of the city. The GCP is working closely with Network Rail and Greater Anglia on designs for the track-side section of the trail for Phase 2.
To help celebrate the birthday, the GCP recently joined community running group ‘Girls that Jog’ for a run along the Chisholm Trail, to understand what they enjoy about running on the trail.
“You see so many people rowing and cycling and it just feels like a congregation of people doing all sorts of sports, and it's quite inspiring.” - Cathy
“A solid good route that you know you can do… you've got somewhere to finish in the middle where you can get some cake. It just really does make the whole aspect of training so much easier!” – Megan
You can see more from the Girls That Jog partnership at GCP x GTJ