wow trail opposed

brk-lnt · 06-12-2009, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ITD

I think you are grasping at straws with the crime angle. I live in a community with a rail trail, and there has been very little crime associated with the trail. I am on the trail at least once a week and there is no litter, just many people enjoying many different types of recreation.

Your perspective could be correct. I for one would like to see some valid data from the WOW folks outlining the expected on-going maintenance costs and how they plan to cover those costs.

I have seen and used trails that were well maintained, and poorly maintained. In Michigan, we had many state parks, and you had to pay an access fee it was like $2.00/day or $25.00/yr), and those fees went to the maintenance of the parks and trails.

Again, I have walked along the EXISTING portions of the WOW trail, and it's not a very impressive thing. There are already litter and maintenance problems along the trail. I'm not talking about a trail in MA. I'm not talking about a trail in southern NH. I'm talking about the existing trail that some people want to extend further.

I do not expect the trail to be a self-maintaining pristine pathway, some problems will occur, and that is to be expected. But I do expect a project like this to have a long-term net positive impact on the area. It should be inviting and pleasant to use. It should be the sort of thing that when a person comes up to the lakes region, they view it as a well engineered public use space, not a slapped-in sidewalk.

Not that it hasn't been done before, but I think that a putting a public walkway next to an active railway isn't really a great idea. The WOW trail, to me, is coming across as an idea with good intentions but extremely poor planning and implementation. In addition to the crime and litter comments, what is the plan for dealing with the areas around the weirs where it seems like there will be some major costs to route the trail?

Does the entire trail REALLY have to go along the waterway? Can it not be something like the MinuteMan trail in Boston and go past a number of key attractions? It would seem that routing this up Union Ave instead of 106 would have much more net positive impact on local businesses.