Methuen Life Coverage
We made the front page of the Methuen Life paper. Run out and grab a few while you have the chance, I was only able to locate one today. This should bring us a nice new flood of members.
Archive for the ‘ Media Coverage ’ Category
Methuen’s State of the City
Last night Methuen’s Mayor Manzi gave his 2009, State of the City address . . . the speech highlights are posted on his blog @ BillManzi.com and the entire text downloadable as a PDF file.
Below I have excerpted the section regarding parks, recreation and rail trail:
“During the summer, Forest Lake is a refuge from the heat for many Methuen residents. Unfortunately, due to high bacteria levels, the lake has been closed to swimming for significant parts of the last few summers. Last year, I put a team together to conduct further testing, improve land management, increase filtration and enhance animal control. As a result, the lake was able to stay open for the remainder of the summer after the improvements were made. I will continue these efforts this year and look forward to working with the revitalized Forest Lake Association.
Continuing on the subject of parks and recreation, plans for the new park and boat ramp at the former Bea’s restaurant site have been finalized and I expect construction work to begin this spring. Plans are also underway for the non-profit Trauma Intervention Program (TIP) to create and take stewardship of a “Healing Garden” at Henry P. Schruender Memorial Park on the Merrimack River. The garden will be a place for meditation and reflection. My thanks to Jayann Landry of T.I.P. and City Councilor Deborah Quinn, who have worked hard to make this possible. It will be the first Healing Garden in the area. Initial plans are also underway to construct a “rail-trail” along the abandoned rail line that runs through downtown Methuen.
Methuen is a city that is very much alive with culture and history. Last year I was happy to establish a summer concert series in historic Grey Court Park. The series was very popular and I look forward to doing it again this year. My thanks to Paul and Denis Webster Greene for all of their hard work on this concert series. The City’s Artist of the Month program continues to thrive. I look forward to meeting Methuen’s talented artists every month as they hang their work in my office.
We are close to finalizing an arrangement to move Methuen’s historic collection into the former Central School building. Last year the need for better space was highlighted by the near destruction of a priceless Robert Frost attendance register. Luckily, the register was recovered before it was damaged and was displayed publicly for the first time ever.”
residents split over restoration of rail service
Windham residents split over restoration of rail. Cost decried, economic benefits touted (read article) by Terry Date
This isn’t even NEW news, just a rehash of last months coverage of the Interstate 93 Transit Investment Study and basically a profile of rail proponent Peter Griffin.
The cost of the train isn’t even correctly estimated, that 200mil are 2008 dollars and doesn’t include any upgrades to infrastructure, like road widening, bridges, stations or parking. If the Express BUS service won’t even be completed for 17 years, can we hazard a guess how long it will take for train service to be completed? 20 years , 30 years? We can still have a nicely walkable trail in less than a year and with proper funding a bikable one in about two.
So, if we pretend that the country is not in an economic crises and isn’t looking at a serious recession to pay for the bailout, the war and the national debt. We will also have to pretend that federal funding won’t be harder to find than a vegan in Texas Roadhouse, we are still looking at 20 plus years of use for property that presently isn’t being enjoyed at all.
a trip along the C&O Canal bike trail
excerpt:
” Bicycling the canal, on a dirt towpath where mules once hauled barges, is like riding through a watercolor painting of nature all day long. Spring, summer and deep into fall, it’s like inhaling a passage from “Walden” and exhaling a verse from Robert Frost.
After splashing through the first dozen mud puddles, seeing the first of the turtles lazing on fallen trees in still water, and getting swallowed by the luscious greenery — as if we’d leaped into that painting — I knew we’d found our stride.
The C&O, it turns out, is an ideal proving ground for casual cyclists looking to push their limits. It’s long, flat and traffic-free, plus gorgeous.
Those same qualities engage dedicated cyclists, too, who can stretch the daily mileage if they want and speed a little faster through the same grand tapestry.
And what a tapestry. On one side is the broad, rushing Potomac River; on the other, the placid canal. Above, a canopy of leaves.
Along the way: 74 locks with massive wooden gates patterned on the designs of Leonardo da Vinci, 11 aqueducts and dozens of white brick houses where gatekeepers tended locks and gardens until the canal went bust in 1924.
The human imprint is frozen in time here. Nature is in motion.
Now herons, songbirds, snakes and the ubiquitous turtles make their living on the C&O.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way when people started carving the earth in 1828 to make a waterway for coal and commerce from the Allegheny Mountains to the East Coast.
They reckoned a canal stretching between Chesapeake Bay and the Ohio River would beat the railroad in the race west. The railroad won — and so did the great outdoors.
Today, the C&O joins the recently expanded Great Allegheny Passage rail trail to give cyclists a 320-mile offroad route along sparkling rivers between Washington and the outskirts of Pittsburgh.”
