I wish the City of Newton were serious about that, but they punted and built a trail on the ROW so now the neighborhood will revolt against the train.
In this case, though, they didn't punt.
The City has rediscovered enthusiasm for the extension with all this redev we're talking about here, because without a transit solution the growth along Needham St. and at New England Business Center won't be sustainable. It's a transit-using neighborhood anyway since the locals are reliant on the 59, sick of the crappy service on that broken route, and dearly want something better. Whatever NIMBY's there might be have powerful incentive to be open-minded given the looming carpocalypse they're looking at.
This is the one "interim" trail I don't worry much about because--by choice or by force-of-traffic-jams--the City has been shaken awake to smart growth considerations, and has taken pains in public statements to be modally inclusive when talking about this ROW's prospects. It's a big contrast to the nihilist earth-salters from Needham Jct. to Medfield who freaked the @#$% out when the '98 Millis CR Feasibility Study was released, started advocating to tear up the rails years before freight service even stopped, then made damn sure they could cut Millis access off by its head for keeps at very first chance.
The portion of ROW that they did convert is plenty wide enough for rail-with-trail, and rail-with-trail is what they're shooting for. The trail conversion did have a side effect of putting some of the encroaching abutters on notice to get their junk off the ROW, so the property lines have been reaffirmed for the first time in ages.
It's also important to note that the MBTA ROW is not the trail of consequence for recreational and pedestrian use...but rather the 1-mile freight spur encircling New England Business Center is. That trail leg has not been built yet other than the first few feet where it forks off the mainline behind the red-and-white radio tower and hits Needham St. at a trailhead. The spur trail will when complete go to Christina St., cross the river on a
second old rail bridge, then connect at Kendrick to the Blue Heron Trail for complete coverage of the Charles watershed. The City is really only interested in the MBTA ROW between Route 9 and Oak St., because it links to the Blue Heron and gets within spitting distance of the Sudbury Aqueduct trail on the north end such that a side path to the Eliot stop on the D can link them all together. There's no desire to continue across the Charles into Needham because you can't get more than a block further without hitting 128, and Needham doesn't want any pedestrian bridge over 128 because you can only get non-usefully to the Webster St. grade crossing before the line goes active again for commuter rail tail storage.
