I took my bike around Newburyport Saturday afternoon just to see what it was like to ride around a city that was relatively flat…btw it was luxurious… I have used the bike routes to and from Plumb Island and that’s a treat as well. Where the roads intown don’t have actual bike lanes there are many more cyclists and the cars give you enough room to ride..well MOST of the cars. BTW there are five pedicabs on the road in Newburyport, now THAT’s a lot of exercise.
I grabbed some pictures of their Clipper City Rail Trail under construction. Seeing as how it is part of the Border to Boston Trail it will be larger and more elaborate than the proposed Methuen Trail…but it’s good to have goals.
The Clipper City Rail Trail will connect to Salisbury’s Eastern Marsh Trail via a rail road bridge across the Merrimack River, run south through to the MBTA station and continue down into Newbury and Rowley. They are also integrating it into their plans for additional downtown bike routes.
Tags: Area Trails, Border to Boston, Clipper City Rail Trail, Newburyport
At 1.3-mile Amesbury Riverwalk is the shortest I have visited, combining it with Amesbury’s regenerated downtown and it is one of the loveliest. The trail head is on Water St where the old Salisbury Point Rail road depot has been planted. But it plans are to connect it with the Salisbury Point Ghost Train Trail and thus join the Border to Boston Trail and rest of Coastal Trails network.
Physically it’s a tad different a winding narrow paved path with a divider line, it runs along the c Powwow River and through some nice residential areas. But worth the walk as it ends at Carriagetown Marketplace. (out behind McDonalds.) The trail has been quite embraced by the community, places like the Riverwalk luxury Apartment count trail access as an amenity. On the day I went the folks from Amesbury Treasures the partnership of sixteen historic sites and museums were handing out walking tour maps at the Salisbury Point Railroad Historical Society’s Depot hangout.
Tags: Amesbury’s Powwow Riverwalk, Area Trails
My apologies for not mentioning the hard work of the the Topsfield Rail Trail Committee for putting on such a lovely event. The Topsfield Historical Society donated the meeting space in their Gould Barn.
Despite the foul weather, Rachel & Harry Banks and I nipped over to Topsfield to catch the Trail Talk evening program organized by the Topsfield Trail Committee. There was of course a large contingent of Topsfield residents getting used to the idea of having their own trail as part of the entire Border to Boston corridor. For them Craig Della Penna’s excellent rail to trails 101 slideshow must have been very encouraging. When we can predict filling an entire hall, I am certain we can get Craig up here with his pretty pictures of successful trails and happy towns.
There was also a smattering of folks from area trails, Salisbury, Haverhill, Danvers, Wakefield etc. The highlight of MY evening was the short discussion given by Atty Steven Winslow regarding liability and rail trails. My thumbnail description would be that the liability for abutting homeowners for the trail is the same as it would be for the sidewalk or street in front of their home. Your homeowner’s policy should protect you. And the towns liability coverage would extend to the trail as it would with any newly acquired property. 
Statistically events ON the trail are exceedingly rare, to me this is sounding like a non issue, sort of the last bastion of the anti-trail argument.
I wish I had thought to take pictures of the circa 1710 post and beam construction of the Gould Barn. It was a swell little meetinghouse.
Tags: Area Trails, Border to Boston, Topsfield Rail Trail
Salisbury has a couple of rail trails in development, all part of the Coastal Trails network. The Ghost Trail (below) which enters Amesbury and the Old Eastern Marsh Trail which parallels Route 1 and goes into Newburyport as part of the Border to Boston rail trail project.
(click here for full uncropped map)
Recently they got a grant for these marvelous interpretive signs:
I will try to get out to the Eastern Marsh Trail tomorrow and get some images.
Tags: Area Trails, Eastern Marsh Trail, Salisbury Coastal Trails, The Ghost Trail
I took the 40 year old Armstrong to Newburyport’s Maudslay State Park, not a rail trail but a nice walk in the woods nonetheless. The park is billed as a multi-use park which includes cycling. And it does, but a great many of the trails are a challenge, more suitable to fat tire and mountain bikes. Not that you can’t do them with a road only bike, but you may want to wear those padded bike shorts you bought but don’t wear cause they feel silly.
[download the PDF printable map]
I only did a few of the many trails, and the surfaces range from deep canopied woods with roots and mulch, to sand and rocks – I only had to dismount once for a rocky uphill but then I am more foolish than most. The trail markers are missing in most places, so PRINT the map and bring exact change for the $2 parking ticket machine.
It is a very very nice park, with many scheduled events.
Maudslay State Park site
Tags: Area Trails, Maudslay State Park, Newburyport
Groundworks Lawrence has been working to open up Lawrence’s greenspaces and link them by reclaiming the banks of the Spicket River. They expect to complete this lovely green necklace in the fall of 2009 with a park at Stevens Pond, adjacent to the Malden Mills/Polartec facility. This of course is conveniently where the southern end of the Methuen rail right of way begins. Methuen’s Rail Trail would link the New Hampshire trails to Lawrence’s greenway, and hopefully across the river to points south.
Tags: Area Trails, Lawrence, Spicket River Greenway
