Popular Bike Trail Gets Even Better
By Ethan Gilsdorf, Globe Correspondent
It's the view not seen from the roadway.
Under a canopy of trees, the 11-mile Minuteman Bikeway runs through Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford, skirting backyards, school ball fields, hidden parks and ponds, crossing bridges, and even passing over Route 128.
This season brings a few new features to the Minuteman: bike racks at several spots, a new rest area in Bedford, and a set of signs trumpeting the path in Arlington. And there are some steps toward new spurs linking the Minuteman to other recreational spots, a potential boon to many of the estimated 2 millions users who take to the path each year for transit or recreation.
"There is a sense of community here," said bicycling advocate Jack Johnson.
Johnson helped build that community. He got involved when the bikeway was under construction back in 1992, and has remained a dedicated advocate who wears many cycling hats. Johnson is chairman of the Arlington Bicycle Advisory Committee, webmaster for the Minuteman's website, and cocreator of the bikeway's map. He's also a former board member of MassBike, a certified cycling instructor, the marketing director for Landry's Bicycles and, most important, he lives in Arlington, right off the path, and uses it daily.
Now is high time to celebrate the Minuteman. For one thing, this year marks the 15th anniversary of its completion. Earlier this month, the Minuteman was inducted into the national Rail-Trail Hall of Fame, the first rail-trail in the Northeast to be so honored.
Given the high price of gas, the Minuteman is likely to see even more use. It's not uncommon for cars to take 45 minutes to exit Alewife station during rush hour. Biking, Johnson said, is a perfect solution to both gas guzzling and gridlock.
"It's often faster than taking the T," he said. "If you're on your bike, you're as free as a bird."
I rode with Johnson up the Minuteman this month, noting along the way the bikeway's highlights and recent improvements. For a guy like me who spends most of his biking time dodging cars on city streets, I found the smooth pathway and lack of four-wheeled antagonists hurtling my way a welcome relief.
First stop: Alewife, where new bicycle racks and a bike-parking cage will be added this year, as will signs to improve wayfinding and connections to other paths and to note the path's Hall of Fame status.
From Alewife, we biked into East Arlington, stopping at the new Spy Pond Park, where amenities include new racks, a boat launch, a playground, and a dirt shoreline path that parallels the Minuteman. The pond makes a great picnic stop (alas, swimming is prohibited).
In the center of Arlington, Johnson proudly pointed out last month's installation of two huge blue banners to mark Arlington's entranceways to the path. Attached to a frame made from old train rails ("a little bit of railroad history hanging here," Johnson said), the banners also help bikers navigate the path where it crosses Massachusetts Ave. New bike racks have been added, adjacent to a path behind Mass Ave.
It may be months from winter, but last year's plowing of the bikeway after snowstorms remains another welcome development. The pilot program took some effort: While the MBTA owns the right of way, each town maintains its own stretch. Arlington agreed to clear the path from the Lexington town line to Alewife. Bike and pedestrian advocates hope the program will become permanent, and be spread to other towns.
"What was proved in Arlington last year was regardless of temperatures or if it was snowing, people would be out there," said Paolo Marinelli of the Clear the Trail Initiative. He said winter access to the Minuteman made the cold months bearable for many, including elderly shoppers and those needing a safe place to walk for rehab after an injury.
Arlington is likely to repeat the program, he said. Lexington's Board of Selectmen is mulling over the idea.
Back on the path, Johnson and I paused in Lexington Center, a little over halfway from Alewife to Bedford. The bikeway passes under an old railroad train shed, now renovated as the town's Historical Society (and home to a bike rack). Racks have also been installed in Lexington Center near the newly refurbished Emery Park.
At the Bedford endpoint, the Bedford Freight House is currently being transformed into a snack bar and gift shop, with indoor bathrooms. A restored B&M train car will become an air-conditioned rest area, Johnson said. Parking has been expanded, benches added, and there are plans to fix up the old Bedford Depot building.
What makes the Minuteman unique, Johnson reminded me as we lounged on the Lexington town green, is the way it links so many sites and public lands. Walkers and bikers can stop off at playing fields and city parks, from the Arlington Reservoir (swimming permitted) to the woods and wetlands of the 120-acre Alewife Brook Reservation and the 183-acre Great Meadows in East Lexington. The historic Old Schwamb Mill in Arlington is worth a pit stop (also the site of new bike racks).
"It really is a greenway," Johnson said.
Several plans for multi-use paths that could branch off the Minuteman are on the drawing boards. One idea is a connector from Lexington to the existing 6-mile Battle Road Trail that leads into Minuteman National Park. From Alewife could run a Watertown Branch Connector to the Charles River. Also slated is an upgrade to the path east of Alewife, Linear Park, and the connection to Davis Square and the Somerville Community Path. Especially needed is a better crossing at Mass Ave., which MassHighway has designed but construction has yet to begin.
Another proposed trail from Alewife would follow the Alewife Brook into Somerville and Medford, where it would join the Mystic River bike path system. Then, via an extension through Charlestown, it could head to the Boston Harbor, or to points north, via a Bike-to-the-Sea path through Malden and Everett to Revere Beach.
The most ambitious, pie-in-the-sky project begins with improvements to the Belmont Bikeway, presently a humble dirt path from Alewife. This would become the first leg of an envisioned 104-mile Mass Central Rail-Trail from Cambridge all the way to Northampton. "We might see it in our lifetime," said Johnson, picturing a new cycling and B&B tourist attraction for the state.
Hope for this human-powered transportation network is high, but reality has a way of thumbing its nose at visionary minds. Progress slows due to money woes, as well as objections from not-in-my-backyard landowners, who worry about privacy and crime. In other cases, a no-man's land of old right-of-ways means cities, towns, the state, rail companies, the MBTA, and the Department of Conservation and Recreation all must sort it out.
"The problem is it's hard to determine jurisdiction," said Johnson. "If it involves money, no one wants to be responsible."
But the Minuteman still inspires. After years of hard work that began in 1974, the way finally opened in 1993, almost two decades later. Other paths can follow.
For more information on the Minuteman Bikeway, see minutemanbikeway.org; to learn more about the Clear the Trail Initiative, see: clearthetrail.org.
Send comments, bike news and events, and ideas to shiftinggears@globe.com.
Let us know if you like the improvements on the Minuteman Bikeway and want to see bikepaths expand into other communities, such as Sudbury. Have your say in our comments section below.
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As someone who lives steps from the Minuteman Bike Path in Arlington, I can say that it has only brought positive things to the East Arlington community.
The opponents to the Sudbury trail are putting up desperate, flimsy arguments (noise? from bikes?) and sound almost frightened (not sure by what).
Bring it out to Milford
I'm sorry? You're going to sell your land to affordable housing developers? Such threats!! Katie bar the door they're going to let the heathens in!!
I really really really hope the path gets built now.
The Minuteman Bike Trail is a HUGE resource for Arlington. And the latest improvements have been great! If you had to name the features that make Arlington such a great town, you would have to include the bike trail among the top 2 or three. My wife and I are avid cyclists and we chose to buy a home on the trail, we can directly ride from our back yard on to it.
To the naysayers in Sudbury I would have to say that if you are smart, you WANT THE TRAIL IN YOUR BACKYARD. Of all the towns in Eastern Massachusetts, it was Arlington that avoided the collapsing real estate values. And guess what makes this is a very desirable town: its proximity to Boston, and it's beautiful bike trail!
The globe article about the residents in Sudbury fighting the trail through their town will infuriate any cyclist. But we have to keep in mind that the worst thing from an advocacy standpoint is to have a cocky attitude about the righteousness of the cause. A friend of mine, a resident of Weston, voted against the proposed bike trail through that town because of the aloofness of the trail advocates about the privacy concerns of the residents. So even though it is plainly obvious that the good of the many outweighs the inconvenience of a few, let's not forget that the naysayers have clout.
It is amazing to me that these NIMBY's can kill these projects. It took a decade to build the Assabet Rail trail and now its continuation is hung up in Stow over NIMBY issues at Honey Pot Hill. Weston killed the Wayside trail and now Sudbury wants to kill the Freeman trail. This must not be allowed to happen. These Sudbury opponents, I'm sure, are the same people who stood outside the Star Market with anti train petitions when there was talk about running a spur from the Framingham commuter rail line into town. It would lead to "loitering" at the train station, they said. Baloney. We know what their real issue is and it's the same thing with the bike path. There is absolutely NO evidence that these trails result in crime. Rail trails increase property values, increase fitness, and give folks a place to ride where they don't have to worry about the blow-by from some nitwit's side mirror. If you ride you know what I mean. The state should just take charge and build these trails, opponents in these tony little suburbs be damned. It's amazing to me that it can take as long as the Big Dig to run a 12-foot wide ribbon of asphalt 10 miles.
Comments and scare tactics from the opposition are rediculous. This path needs to be built. It only makes sense - we need to promote biking, not block it. The opposition reminds me of the folks on Cape Cod trying to block the wind farm. They talk the "green talk", but don't walk the "green walk".
The fears quoted in the Sudbury article aren't that different from those expressed in Lexington during planning of the Minuteman bike path. And nowadays, people realize that a bike path is not the big disaster these people are making it out to be. News flash, bikes are NOT the preferred getaway vehicle from criminals.
And if the bike path goes in you're going to sell your land for affordable housing... wow, we can kill two birds with one stone!
Sigh...
State highways don't require the approval of every little town they go through, the state can use eminent domain. Maybe that would be appropriate here, too.
I have three things to say about those trying to stop the new bike path in Sudbury:
1. They are selfish snobs.
2. They are selfish snobs.
3. They are selfish snobs.
I don't understand those whose extreme "not in my backyard" attitudes extend even to bikepaths, which prove to be a boon to any community. It's not as if someone wants to build a nuclear waste facility in your neighborhood for God's sake, it's just a peaceful bikepath. At one time trains were making their noisy way along the proposed route -- what an upgrade a quiet bikepath is!
Classic Nymbyism. Gosh, bycyclists and roller bladers and women pushing babycarriages! There goes the neighborhood!
about time we expand the bike paths. The heck with the morons in Sudbury
There are a number of old railroad beds in mine and the surrounding towns on the North Shore. Towns like Wakefield, Saugus, Lynnfield, Peabody, Reading and beyond would make it ideal for people on the North Shore to take a respite from the traffic clogged roads. My hometown of Marblehead conveterd an old railroad bed many years ago that travereses the entire town. It has also been extended to include a portion in Salem. Salem itself has created a bikeway separate from the Marblehead trail. Would like to see a lot more of these turned into bikeways that would allow those on the North Shore to travel all the way to Boston
once again as it is here in boston, the attitude is i've got mine to hell with the rest of you. that is what for the most part killed columbus place and will kill any sensible project in the commonwealth!!!! may all these people please find a grave so that progress may go on!
>"We don't have neighbors nearby," said Marianne Maurer, whose family's tree >farm is bisected by the proposed bike trail. "If something happened, no one >would hear us yelling."
Ms Mauer, I'll bet if you cut your leg with a pruning saw while you are out on your tree farm, you'd have a way to summon help... Oh, but that is, I am sure, a different story...
Your pathetic attitude reminds me of those similar folks who live next to Logan Airport, but complain and protest about the jet noise. Those train tracks I am sure have been in place near your property longer than you have been on the planet. Blocking the use of that legally owned right-of-way is in essence trying to thieve someone else's land, and because you and your snobby neighbors have cash, the thievery is thus OK.
Forget the bikes, I hope CSX starts running freight trains on the spur again, THEY will certainly be more peaceful than bicyclists and hikers.
The trail starts in Lowell. They'll probably all sorts of gang violence that makes it's way down to Sudbury too...
To borrow a phrase from a local real estate show. A house that has a bike trail nearby is a selling point. Any time someone living near a bike trail goes to sell, their realtor is certain to mention the adjacent bike trail as part of the listing.
i grew up in Sudbury and i remember when the town fought long and hard against opening a Dunkin Donuts in town. they were afraid that a DD's would "attract the wrong kind of people" to Sudbury. finally, after i don't know how many years, a Dunkin's was built on rt. 20 and it was (and still is) the most asthetically pleasing Dunkin's i've ever seen. a subdued sign hangs out front (no trademark orange and pink lettering) and the building itself looks like a small house with a landscaped yard. there is no drive thru because i think that was part of the agreement. drive-thrus apparently also attract the wrong people and have no place in sudbury. while it's not exactly the same issue, this bike path thing reminds me of that same self-rightous attitude.
Wait a minute now!
"My whole theory is: Go to the gym that you got the membership for and that you know you are not using."
Believe it or not, most of us cannot afford a gym membership. And more and more people are bicycling to work, because they cannot afford the price of gas these days.
These are decent, caring people. Ms. Mauer should get to meet some of them. It sould be a new experience.
Sudbury is a clueless NIBM (Not In My Back Yard) community. This is typical exurbia snob zoning. The crime rate will go up? Maybe it will in your "hood", but it hasn't in mine which is near the Minuteman Bike path. Sounds like you have problems, but my community doesn't and I live close to the urban core of Boston. Exurbia is dead!
The railroad should keep these tracks for future expansion. I'd like more railroads everywhere. Typical American idiots. I want 200 MPH trains in this country!
How myopic Sudbury is being. We've lived in Switzerland for 2 years, one of the wealthiest countries on the planet. Bike and walking paths snake through farms and villages, shared by neighbors and strangers passing through. When one walks through fields with livestock, signs ask you to keep your dog on a leash. There is a spirit of shared experience. It works and is so much preferable to driving cars around this extraordinary landscape.
Sudbury, don't pass up this great opportunity!
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