Biking the Boston 'Burbs (Trails, MDC, & Towns beyond Hubway area)

From an RR.net spotter...the former South Sudbury diamond has been put back in on display at the intersection of the Mass Central and Bruce Freeman trails:

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www.natickreport.com

MBTA opens long-awaited trail connection to Natick Center station - Natick Report

The highly anticipated commuter rail-to-trail connection in Natick Center opened Feb. 6 a
www.natickreport.com www.natickreport.com
The highly anticipated commuter rail-to-trail connection in Natick Center opened Feb. 6, paving the way for commuters, runners, and walkers alike to access the larger Cochituate Rail Trail.
The trail, now 3.7 miles long, runs from Framingham’s Saxonville neighborhood to the outbound platform of the Natick Center MBTA Station.
“This is something that will benefit thousands of people,” said Josh Ostroff, former Natick Select Board member and president of the board of the Friends of Natick Trails. “We know that it is important for better and safer mobility, and easier connections, and particularly for people with disabilities.”
Before the connection, the trail ended by Mechanic Street. Now, residents can bike directly to the commuter rail—although biking on the platform is prohibited. The new section of the trail is equipped with sheltered bike racks, security cameras, and a police call box.
The MBTA agreed to fund and pave the final component of the trail after completing its own renovation plans at the station.
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Several bits of good news on the MCRT. Our Metro-West town meetings have been busy (all links to a public Facebook group):
Hudson Town Meeting unanimously passes design funding for their stretch of the MCRT
Sudbury Town Meeting approves various improvements to their stretch
Wayland Town Meeting approves easements for constructing the missing segment between Wayland Depot and the Sudbury line
Also, Belmont approved funding for Phase 1 of their stretch (Cambridge line to just past the commuter rail station), but I don't have a link.
 
mass.streetsblog.org

Town of Sandwich Opens New 4-Mile Segment In Planned Cross-Cape Pathway - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Last Friday, local officials officially cut the ribbon on the new Service Road shared-use pathway in the Cape Cod town of Sandwich – a four-mile trail alongside Service Road that partially fills one of the biggest gaps in the Cape's network of off-street bike and pedestrian trails.
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
The path fills in a large gap in a proposed 88-mile network of car-free trails that would traverse the entire Cape, from Provincetown to Bourne to Woods Hole.
The new pathway in Sandwich fills in roughly a quarter of the gap between the existing Cape Cod Canal shared-use pathways in Bourne and the western end of the Cape Cod Rail Trail in Yarmouth.
MassDOT and the Town of Barnstable are currently building a 4-mile extension of the Cape Cod Rail Trail to connect it to Mary Dunn Road in Barnstable.
The next phase of the Cape Cod Rail Trail – filling the gap to the new Service Road path in Sandwich – is currently in design. Most of the proposed alignment would also run alongside Service Road and Route 6 through the town of Barnstable.
Finally, the Town of Sandwich has a conceptual plan to connect the new Service Road path to the existing Cape Cod Canal pathway with new pathways along Route 130 and along the Old King’s Highway through Sandwich’s village center. That project is currently in its early design stage.
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Walked the Methuen bike trail from Lawrence. Unfortunately, Salem, NH is taking forever to connect it to the Windham and Derry trails.
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Scott said:
Walked the Methuen bike trail from Lawrence. Unfortunately, Salem, NH is taking forever to connect it to the Windham and Derry trails.
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Salem did add a crosswalk at the Route 28 and Rockingham Park Blvd intersection within the past few years. That was a pretty big barrier, but there are still some uncomfortable crossings at the larger shopping plazas to the south. I think a miss was the Tuscan Village development, the sidewalks and paths aren't very consistent to make it convenient to access the rail trail. Oh well, at least there are SOME sidewalks within their development.....

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Yes, I would think Tuscan Village itself would benefit from bike infrastructure. It is supposed to be as much an outdoor destination as commercial area. Also I hate that Salem placed huge power lines on that stretch of 28.
However, I do like what they have done to the area off Hampshire Street where it touches Methuen except for the pavement ending on the other side of the street.
The Methuen trail is kind of urban but passes through a lot of conservation land and the Spicket River bird sanctuary. There is lots of areas to stop and sit which us old folks appreciate.
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www.franklinmatters.org

Rail trail extension work underway

Powered by citizen journalism, your daily source of information about what matters in Franklin, MA.
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Work has started on the rail trail extension between Grove Street and Union Street in Franklin. Workers have started the process of removing the rail infrastructure that is currently in place.
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themissinglink said:
www.franklinmatters.org

Rail trail extension work underway

Powered by citizen journalism, your daily source of information about what matters in Franklin, MA.
www.franklinmatters.org www.franklinmatters.org
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There's a Superfund site halfway down the Franklin Industrial Track, and it's known that the soil contamination there has seeped onto the trackbed. They might be removing the out-of-service rails now because of the town now owning the ROW, but it's probably going to be a long time before it's cleaned up enough to be a permissible recreational trail. There's no current EPA funding for cleaning up that ex- factory site.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
There's a Superfund site halfway down the Franklin Industrial Track, and it's known that the soil contamination there has seeped onto the trackbed. They might be removing the out-of-service rails now because of the town now owning the ROW, but it's probably going to be a long time before it's cleaned up enough to be a permissible recreational trail. There's no current EPA funding for cleaning up that ex- factory site.
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I just hope the rail trail doesn't preclude reactivating the tracks for Commuter Rail service to Woonsocket. It would also be nice if rail-with-trail on the Franklin Line is the long-term goal for this corridor. A safe, convenient cycling route connecting Franklin, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Dedham, and Readville would be huge for car-free mobility in this area.
 
themissinglink said:
I just hope the rail trail doesn't preclude reactivating the tracks for Commuter Rail service to Woonsocket. It would also be nice if rail-with-trail on the Franklin Line is the long-term goal for this corridor. A safe, convenient cycling route connecting Franklin, Norfolk, Walpole, Norwood, Westwood, Dedham, and Readville would be huge for car-free mobility in this area.
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The existing Franklin-Blackstone trail is very well-buffered. The ROW property lines range from 70 to 125 ft. wide, and there's hardly any abutters. It would be particularly easy to do up as rail-with-trail. And I doubt you'd need much double-track past Franklin Jct. for Woonsocket service; even at :30 minute service with no forking for the Milford Branch you could get by with single + passers way out on the tail.

The Franklin mainline is going to be a little bit difficult to try to shoehorn in a companion trail. The ROW passes through a lot of wetland embankments south of Walpole and north of Route 128, and it's been heavily grade-separated throughout with frequent rail bridges and road overpasses that sharply constrain the width in a lot of discrete spots and don't leave easy trailhead access to the streets above and below. There's no current studies for doing it, and I doubt there's going to be any until at least a couple other mainlines on the system (e.g. Fitchburg, Reading) get attempted rail-with-trail installations that end up going easier-than-expected on engineering difficulty. And even then Franklin would rate as one of the harder ones on the system to do because so much of it is not at-grade like the inner-Fitchburg and past-Oak Grove Reading lines are.
 
Finally, some movement on the Dover Rail Trail project:

Healey Administration Awards $8.6 Million in MassTrails Grants – Here's What's Getting Funded - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Trail advocates from all over the Commonwealth gathered yesterday at the Rauscher Farm in Clinton, next to a future segment of the Mass Central Rail Trail, as state officials announced this year's round of MassTrails grants to support the planning, design, and construction of new trails all over...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org
  • Dover Rail Trail: $260,000 to complete shovel-ready design plans for Dover’s segment of the proposed Bay Colony Rail Trail from Newton to Medfield. When complete, Dover’s segment will link two existing trail segments to the south and north, in Medfield and Needham, respectively.
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I hope that Millis, Medway, and Bellingham start work on their sections of the trail sooner rather than later. I've only heard some discussion about expanding the trail west of Medfield, but there aren't any serious plans as far as I know.
 
themissinglink said:
Finally, some movement on the Dover Rail Trail project:

Healey Administration Awards $8.6 Million in MassTrails Grants – Here's What's Getting Funded - Streetsblog Massachusetts

Trail advocates from all over the Commonwealth gathered yesterday at the Rauscher Farm in Clinton, next to a future segment of the Mass Central Rail Trail, as state officials announced this year's round of MassTrails grants to support the planning, design, and construction of new trails all over...
mass.streetsblog.org mass.streetsblog.org

I hope that Millis, Medway, and Bellingham start work on their sections of the trail sooner rather than later. I've only heard some discussion about expanding the trail west of Medfield, but there aren't any serious plans as far as I know.
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The Millis Industrial Track isn't abandoned yet. It's pretty much doomed as the last transload business died out about 5 years ago, and new operator Mass Coastal has next-to-no interest in running anything outside its South Coast + Cape base of operations, but they haven't formally petitioned the Surface Transportation Board for a discontinuation of service so the trail lobbies have no basis yet for planning anything.
 
There's a couple other lines in the southwestern suburbs that have a much higher chance of being trailed, albeit with tricky ownership:
  • Wrentham Branch (Norwood-North Attleborough): No likely reactivation potential. The densest part in Norwood is still allegedly active, so railbanking that part would be easy. Other sections have chopped-up ownership. Parts in Walpole and Plainville are municipally owned, and most in Wrentham is utility owned.
  • Millis Branch (Needham-Woonsocket): Intermittent freight service near Medfield; mild potential Medfield-Medway as a Franklin Line branch. Portions in Needham and Medfield have trails; Dover has been NIMBY about it. State-owned as far as Medfield; chopped up with a mix of owners further south. (Woonsocket actually owns a section in Blackstone where it meets the SNETT.)
  • Valley Falls Branch (Franklin-Valley Falls): No reactivation potential. Ownership is very chopped up in MA, but mostly utility ROW in Rhode Island.
  • Medway Branch (Medway-Norfolk): No reactivation potential. Mostly town-owned in Norfolk; mix of municipal and private in Medway (but mostly a power line corridor there). With a connector to the Millis Branch, it could get the Medway and West Medway village centers within a 6-mile ride of Norfolk station.
Getting closer to Boston would be trickier, but there are some possibilities:
  • Needham Junction-Newton Highlands: The north portion is currently a trail. The ROW is mostly 70 feet wide, so rail-with-trail would be very plausible for a Green Line branch.
  • Sudbury Aqueduct: Currently a section of disconnected trails, largely unpaved trails between Framingham and Newton Centre. Could have a lot of potential as a bikeway, but I'm not sure if those suburbs would be willing to do so. Easy to connect to Eliot station and the previous entry with a spur along the Green Line.
  • Needham Cutoff: If the Needham Line is replaced by Green and Orange extensions, this segment is less likely to have rail use.
  • VFW Parkway, Centre Street, Arborway: All currently have bike lanes, though further protection is needed in many segments. There's a lot of potential to create a car-free route via the Arboretum research building, Hemlock Hill "Road", the existing South Street path, and 500 yards of rail-with-trail to connect to the Southwest Corridor.
  • Dedham Branch: Dedham NIMBYs have prevented this from becoming a trail so far, but it would so damn easy.
  • Truman Parkway path - Neponset Trail
  • From Norwood to Readville, I do think the Franklin Branch alignment is the most feasible. It tends to be a pretty wide embankment through most of the swamps.
In a maximalist rail and trail world, I think you end up with something like this (black = rail + trail, red = new trail not on a rail alignment):
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There would need to be a real, funded trail plan to make it worthwhile. Eminent domain is both financially and politically expensive; acquiring ROWs on spec would not be remotely feasible. Actual analysis is needed to determine where eminent domain is worthwhile and where alternate routes would be more feasible, especially where structure have been built on the ROW.
 
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