A Starter Guide for the US Great Lakes Waterfront Trail

Great Lakes Region
Project Description

The US GLWT partners cover a wide breadth of geographic space and federal, state, and local agencies. Partners hold monthly roundtable meetings with 40+ participants. A collaboration of this scale must overcome potential challenges like large-scale coordination, preserving individual state identities, and possible funding disruptions.

To handle these challenges, the School for Environment and Sustainability Great Lakes Waterfront Trail (SEAS-GLWT) Starter Guide helps GLWT stakeholders navigate trail design decisions and consider various priorities at local and multi-state levels. The Starter Guide provides a starting point, tools, and resources for other Great Lake communities as they work on further developing their trail design.

This Starter Guide seeks to bridge the gap between local residents who care about their local trails and the governmental agencies that manage the trails.

Starter Guide Sections

There are three sections to the Starter Guide, each piece providing different tools and resources. The student team recommends starting with the Decision-making framework to outline the trail design process. Next, review the Trail Design Toolkit to pick the best trail types for your site. Finally, read the report if you are interested in learning more about our process and the pilot site, Erie County, Pennsylvania.

Each piece of the Starter Guide can be used individually, though we recommend reviewing them in this order:

  1. Report: discusses the behind-the-scenes actions and thought process that went into the design of the Starter Guide and provides lessons learned from the pilot site.
  2. Decision-making Framework: breaks down different aspects of the US GLWT proposed trail planning and design process in an easy-to-understand way
  3. Trail Design Toolkit: provides tools and resources for trail design, including a guide for different trail types, considerations in trail design, provides examples with test sites in the GLWT region

Relevant Links

Year
2026
Project Status
Past Project
Client Organization
National Parks Service - Rivers Trails and Conservation Assistance Program, Council of Governments Midwest
Students Involved

Christine Sit, Emily Carra, Xingyan Chen, Xiao Chen, Roberto Carriedo Ostos

SEAS Faculty Advisor
Lisa DuRussel
Advisor(s)
Isabella Shehab
Final Report
See entire project PDF with all three of the Starter Guide sections here.
Video
Watch the recording of our final presentation!
Learn more
Project Vision and Overview

Imagine 4000 miles of walking and biking trail along spectacular Great Lakes scenery, starting from the shores of Minnesota all the way to New York. This trail is the emerging US Great Lakes Waterfront Trail (US GLWT), a massive initiative spearheaded by the Council of State Governments Midwest and the National Park Service.

The US GLWT aims to connect waterfront trails along the largest chain of freshwater lakes in the world. The 4000-mile-trail will bridge countries and communities and bring tourism and economic opportunities to Great Lakes communities.

To make this vision a reality, our team from the University of Michigan made a new starter guide for trail design, specifically to make it easier for the average person to advocate, protect, and enhance the trails special to them. The starter guide empowers community members to advocate and care for their favorite trails. 

As stated by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (2020), "Trails are no longer just for walking, hiking, and biking; they are adapting to serve the needs of growing and diversifying trail uses such as mountain biking, horseback riding, e-biking, kayaking, and motorized trail riding."

Trails led by communities that care are trails made to last. Our starter guide opens up the world of trail design to anyone and everyone, all to continue showing the world what makes the Great Lakes region such a unique place.

 

Who this Starter Guide is for

The SEAS-GLWT Starter Guide (also referred to as Starter Guide) is intended for anyone passionate about improving trails in the Great Lakes region. This could mean residents of a local community, members of grassroots community organization, municipal governments, non-profits, and any other individual or group interested in trails designed for communities. 

Starter Guide Goals

Users of the Starter Guide should be able to:

  • Be prepared to approach local planning, environmental, and governmental bodies with trail design options and ideas to further local trail improvement
  • Understand the considerations and processes that go behind trail design
  • Understand how to utilize the accompanying resources to further the trail planning process
  • Identify relevant trail types for trails of interest
  • Review lessons learned from applying trail design processes to the pilot site
  • Learn about different considerations when applying Starter Guide principles to local communities
Tribal Engagement

The project team did not have the capacity to include Tribal Engagement in the Starter Guide. However, we acknowledge the importance of this topic and include a few resources for those interested:

Tribal Engagement Resources, resources “ cover topics such as cultural competency, Tribal consultation, training opportunities, and tools for stakeholder engagement” by the National Association of Development Organization

I'M READY TO APPLYI WANT TO LEARN MORE

Headshot of a smiling woman with brown hair and a black top
The work that the SEAS team has done looking at the Pennsylvania section of the Great Lakes Waterfront Trail has galvanized local partners, helped link together local plans, and set up a model to be replicated on other sections of the trail. We are so grateful to the team for their focus on engaging community partners and delivering a product that is an essential tool for our partners in Pennsylvania, as well as stakeholders across the region.
—
Jess Lienhardt, Great Lakes Program Director at the Council of State Governments Midwest
A man standing in front of a Great Lakes map with the audience in the foreground
A U.S. Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, combined with Canada’s Great Lakes Waterfront Trail, would connect communities, create unique recreation experiences, and emphasize the importance of the Great Lakes and conserving our ecosystems.
—
Dr. John Hartig from University of Windsor’s Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research
Headshot of a smiling person standing in front of two corpose flowers
Imagine you’re strolling along the Detroit Riverwalk in Detroit, MI. You come across a sign that says, “U.S. Great Lakes Waterfront Trail (US GLWT).” Nearby is another sign. “Niagara Falls, 300 miles away.” Imagine that, a trail that connects Detroit all the way to Niagara Falls! This is the vision: a trail network that connects all 8 Great Lake states, a companion to the already existing Canadian Great Lakes Waterfront Trail.
—
Christine Sit, SEAS Project Team Member
SEAS-GLWT Student Team.jpg
SEAS-GLWT Student Team at their presentation for the SEAS Capstone Conference.
SEAS-capstone-04092026-49.jpg
SEAS-GLWT Student Team Presentation
Concept of TREC.png
Trail Visualization at Tom Ridge Environmental Center in Erie, PA
Framework Diagram.png
Framework Process Diagram
The Decision-making Framework (also referred to as Framework) is a 5-step process that outlines different considerations for trail design. Each step of the process builds on the previous step. However, the Framework is also meant to be an iterative process, where each step can be revisited to ensure it remains aligned with the current direction of the project.
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Trail Design Guide

Acknowledgements

There are many people we would like to thank for supporting this project in various ways, from reviewing visuals to editing storytelling to inspiration! We appreciate all of the following people:

2025-2026 Ecological Design Theme Course for 16 months of peer review

David Meyer (Canadian Great Lakes Waterfront Trail) for help with project visioning

Carole Love and Dave Brenner (UM SEAS) for storytelling support

Matthew Waldinger (Millcreek Township, Pennsylvania) for hosting and coordinating our in-person stakeholder event

Jaedyn Medrano for final hour nitpicks

And so many more!

US GLWT Concept Map

This trail is the emerging US Great Lakes Waterfront Trail (US GLWT), a massive initiative spearheaded by the Council of State Governments Midwest and the National Park Service. The US GLWT aims to connect waterfront trails along the largest chain of freshwater lakes in the world. The 4000-mile-trail will bridge countries and communities and bring tourism and economic opportunities to Great Lakes communities.