Mixed views on bike trail

Push in city; town eyes fine print

Area bicyclists would have access to a 23-mile recreational trail under plans for an old railbed linking Waltham and Berlin. (Globe Staff File 2006 Photo / Bill Polo)

As officials in Waltham consider pushing forward on the city's portion of the Wayside bicycle and walking trail, officials in Weston are wondering what sort of voice they might have in determining the future of the section of the trail that winds through their community.

In Waltham on Monday, Councilor at Large Patrick O'Brien presented the City Council with a resolution urging the city to work closely with state officials and planners to make the 3-mile trail a reality.

O'Brien has requested $1 million for the trail from the city's Community Preservation Act fund.

According to Planning Department representatives, O'Brien's request would augment an ongoing state effort focused not only on Waltham's path but the entire 23 miles of the trail, which is proposed for an abandoned railbed running between Waltham and Berlin.

"This is a work in progress," said William Durkee, Waltham's Community Preservation Act program manager. Efforts to complete the Wayside Trail have continued for 10 years.

In Weston, meanwhile, where the trail idea was rejected by Town Meeting in 1997, officials learned this month that the state Department of Conservation and Recreation wants to sign a 99-year lease with the MBTA, which now owns the railbed, for the whole length of the proposed trail and to take over the project.

Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for the state agency, said DCR officials would seek federal funds for the trail project if the lease is arranged.

Weston Town Manager Donna VanderClock said officials were anxious to find out what the new lease might mean to the town.

"There's a lot we need to learn about this," she said last week. "We need to know what the process will be if it's owned by the state." The process at the time of the Town Meeting vote, she said, "allowed the town to have a voice. I don't know if the process this time would be the same."

VanderClock said this week that Susan Haber, Weston's town planner, has traded phone messages with a Department of Conservation and Recreation representative and was seeking more information about the new efforts.

Fox said that if Weston residents still oppose the trail, "they can certainly tie it up.

"But the more important point is that we don't want to alienate communities," she said. "We'll talk to the town."

The vote in Weston a decade ago followed a two-year period in which the communities along the trail formed committees to discuss the project. State funds were allocated. But Weston's denial halted the effort and statewide funding was stopped.

Waltham, however, wanted to move ahead. A few years ago, Waltham officials paid consultant Earth Tech $90,000 to work with the MBTA to obtain a lease for Waltham's portion of the trail, weaving from Bentley College on Linden Street past the Route 128 overpass to the Weston line.

Late last year, DCR representatives stepped in and asked Waltham officials if the state could take over negotiations and the entire project. Waltham officials agreed.

Now, Waltham officials are ready to proceed with the city's section of the trail regardless of what happens to the overall project.

Explained O'Brien: "I've been waiting a long time for our own trail."