Three major segments of the Bruce Freeman and Mass. Central Rail Trails are currently under construction in the suburbs west of Boston, and when these projects are complete, the two trail networks will be connected with each other for the first time.
Additionally, MassDOT is also advancing design work on two gaps on the Mass. Central Rail Trail (MCRT) in Sudbury and Waltham so that, before the end of the decade, people will be able to walk or ride along a continuous off-street pathway from the east side of Waltham to downtown Hudson, 19 miles to the west.
Here's a rundown of the three construction projects that are happening now, plus three design and planning projects that will fill in missing gaps between them (numbers refer to the locations mapped above):
New asphalt on the City of Waltham's segment of the Mass. Central Rail Trail. Photo by Martha Creedon, courtesy of the City of Waltham.
As we reported here last fall, the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is also working on plans to rehabilitate two bridges over I-95 and the Fitchburg Line railroad tracks to connect this segment with the existing 5-mile section of the MCRT in Weston. Designs and permitting for that short link are expected to be finished in 2023, but its construction has yet to be funded.
The new power line will literally lay the groundwork for the next 7.5-mile segment of the MCRT: DCR plans to pave a new trail on top of the freshly-graded corridor once the Eversource project is finished.
In a public meeting on March 2nd, Paul Jahnige, a DCR planner, said that "the first phase with Eversource Energy is under construction right now, and it is DCR’s intention to come in and finish the trail immediately after that first phase, and we’re projecting that as 2024 and 2025 at this point."
When complete, this trail segment will connect the MCRT to both the Assabet River trail system in Hudson and Marlborough, and to the also-under-construction Bruce Freeman Rail Trail, which extends northward to Lowell (more on that project below).
A small gap still remains between this segment and the existing MCRT in Wayland to the east. At that March 2 public meeting, DCR officials presented their 25 percent design plans for that gap, which runs through the wetlands along the Sudbury River. This missing trail segment is funded to go under construction in 2027, although Jahnige said that "if it all works out and this particular Wayland-to-Sudbury project can move up in the funding program, we would hope that (these two segments) could be constructed and completed at about the same time."
3: Bruce Freeman Rail Trail extension through Sudbury and Concord
This project will connect the Bruce Freeman trail to the MCRT corridor, which means that when both of these projects are complete, there will be a continuous off-street pathway that connects Marlborough, Hudson, Sudbury, Concord, Acton, Chlemsford, and Lowell.
This story was corrected at 10:30 a.m. on March 7 to correct the trail mileage length of the new Sudbury-Hudson trail segment on the Eversource corridor. Because of the editor's error, a previous version of the story said that the new trail segment would be 9 miles long; however, that is the length of the power line project, which extends along local streets beyond the trail corridor. The new trail will in fact be 7.5 miles long.
57 percent of the poll's respondents said that making the T free to ride would make them more likely to use transit; 37 percent said that fare-free service would make them "much more likely" to ride.