Autumn in the North Cemetery.

Sixty miles west of Boston, Massachusetts there is the small New England town of Sturbridge. Located at the junction of I-90 (The Mass Pike), and I-84 it has become known as the "Crossroads of New England". The town was first settled over 300 years ago, and like other small New England towns it has grown just enough over the years to be in a difficult place today. How do we embrace the future without forgetting how we got to our present? How do we attract the right kind of growth, and maintain who we are? And, what about our culture out here in Central Massachusetts?



These pages will cause one to think about how to protect what we have, our future direction, and how to move on in the very best way.


Those thoughts, and other ramblings, will hopefully inspire more thought, conversation, action, and occasionally a smile...

...seems to be working so far

Monday, January 7, 2008

UPDATE: Grand Trunk Trail

The following information was submitted by Tom Chamberland.

"Briefly, Let me bring everyone up to date on the Grand Trunk Trail (GTT). The town has requested and is awaiting a release of $50,000.00 of the federal earmark funds ($480,000.00) to complete the required design and permitting phase. I anticipate this portion to take about 6-8 months. At that point it will be up to Mass Highway to construct the trail (using the remaining funds). So hopefully by end of summer, 2010 this 3.8 mile portion of the trail from West Street in Southbridge to the River Rd/Farquhar Rd intersection will be complete.


As for going further west, OSV has indicated an interest in the trail and the Town recently purchased one of two needed sections to bring the trail to Holland Rd. From there, using the section of trolley trail and on to the Corps East Brimfield land is proposed. The Corps of Engineers recently partnered with the Town of Brimfield and their bike committee and is working on the plans to extend the trail about 5 miles into the center of Brimfield.


To the East, the Town of Southbridge trail committee has identified the sidewalk connection from the GTT to the Quinebaug River trail(QRT) to bring the trail into the town of Webster. The QRT has received both state funding ($200,000.00) and federal earmark funding $670,000.00 for design and construction and that process is moving along. It is foreseeable that by 2014 we could have something close to 20 miles of linear trail.


Please note I have listed proposed sections and that there are still several private property issues that remain to be addressed. If anyone wants more detailed information please email me at thomas.a.chamberland@usace.army.mil"

The Grand Trunk Trail Blazers, a non profit group that has been promoting this trail for years, has a Yahoo group for information on the GTT the link is:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grandtrunktrailblazers/.

They also have plans to get a web site up and running in a few months.
Scribbled by on

1 comment:

  1. AnonymousTuesday, January 08, 2008

    Just thinking: I forgot to mention that the Grand Trunk Trail Blazers ( non profit group that has been promoting this trail for years...) has a Yahoo group for information on the GTT the link is:
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/grandtrunktrailblazers/ They also have plans to get a web site up and running in a few months.

    ReplyDelete



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