Linking trails and people

ALAN FRENCH'S feeling of satisfaction came through clearly over the phone this week. He had presided Saturday over the dedication of a 5.25-mile section of the Bay Circuit Trail in Pembroke, which means 87 percent of the trail is marked and open to the public.

The circuit, a dream of open space activists for generations, will form a 200-mile link through the outer suburbs of Boston from Plum Island in the north to Kingston Bay in the south. French, chairman of the Bay Circuit Alliance, and other members have been trying to get the path marked and protected for 18 years. Decades of development have made the last 50 or 60 miles exceedingly difficult, especially in the southern sections.

Yet town by town, the trail has been created from existing open spaces, utility rights of way, cranberry bogs, and abandoned rail lines. Word got around that despite the rapid developments in their communities, residents could unite under the umbrella of the circuit to create protected paths from the fragments of green space that remain.

In October 2006, Marie Peeler, an executive consultant in Pembroke, spoke at the dedication of an eight-mile stretch through Hanson. She was assembling a coalition that eventually persuaded Pembroke selectmen to include conservation land in the circuit.

But while the Pembroke section is complete, there's room for improvement elsewhere. The trail starts in Duxbury but dips into Kingston before heading into Peeler's town. Dick Rothschild, a Duxbury resident, attended the dedication Saturday to meet Peeler in the hope that together they could rally townspeople to create a shortcut that would link paths in Duxbury and Pembroke - and add variety for hikers.

The Bay Circuit is about more than parks and trails. In a fragmented exurbia, it brings people together to create a common space for recreation and to protect precious green spaces from further diminution.