In a report to the nonprofit Concord Conservation Trust, Woodward Planning Consultants, Inc., documents a goal of "creating, for the benefit of the general public, a trail system, throughout the greenway along the more than 14 miles of embankments of the Merrimack as it meanders through the City."

The City of Concord launched the 20/20 Vision for Concord, a three-year community visioning process intended to guide the city’s growth into the 21st century. The effort included multiple public workshops, charrettes, and community meetings involving hundreds of residents, business leaders, and stakeholders. The process focused on identifying community priorities for transportation, land use, economic development, and quality of life.

The final 20/20 Vision report established guiding principles including improving pedestrian and bicycle connections, strengthening downtown, and recognizing the Merrimack River waterfront as an underutilized community asset. These principles encouraged better access to the river and stronger connections between neighborhoods, parks, and downtown. The Merrimack River Greenway Trail advances many of these same long-standing community planning goals.

As part of its response to public comments on the design of the Interstate 93 widening project, the NHDOT hires Rizzo Engineers to study the feasibility of a bike path between Concord and Salem, NH. Rizzo determines it is feasible and recommends an option that includes the reuse of several miles of abandoned railroad rights of way between the state line in Salem and the Concord/Pembroke city line.

The Friends of the Northern Rail Trail opens miles of new trails on what once was a rail line connecting Boscawen and Lebanon. The plan is to build it to within about a half mile of the Concord/Boscawen city line.

A group called the New Hampshire Rail Trail Coalition forms around an ambitious objective of building a continuous off-road trail from Salem to Lebanon. The Merrimack River Greenway Trail would be the connecting link between the Northern Rail Trail in Boscawen and the Salem-to-Concord bike path in Pembroke.

June 8 — Concord Planning Board adopts the "Concord Master Plan 2030", containing several references to non-motorized trails along the Merrimack River.

December 7 — The Bicycling Subcommittee of Concord's Transportation Policy Advisory Committee (TPAC-Bike) holds three very well attended public meetings to obtain resident input for Concord's first "Bicycle Master Plan". Many participants express a desire for bike paths and trails in Concord.

The Board of Directors of Concord 2020 votes to appropriate $18,000 to study the feasibility of building a multi-use trail along the Merrimack River. A working group is assembled to direct the study; Fay, Spofford and Thorndike (FST) Engineers is selected to do the study; and the Feasibility Study is completed in December.

February 23 — Following a presentation by the working group, the Concord Planning Board incorporated the MRGT into the City's Master Plan.

March 14 — The Concord City Council accepts the Feasibility Study and authorizes City staff to work with trail advocates to raise funds and build the trail.

October 19 — "Friends of the Merrimack River Greenway Trail, Inc." is incorporated as a nonprofit corporation under New Hampshire law.

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The MRGT was on its way!