Friends of Northampton Trails and Greenways held their annual meeting on November 18. The featured speaker was Wayne Feiden, Director of Northampton’s Office of Planning and Development, speaking on “Transforming Northampton’s Rail Trails to a Regional Trail Network”.
Here is a Google video of the meeting. It’s one hour and 16 minutes long. We join the meeting just a few seconds into the beginning. The video was recorded by Lachlan Ziegler. View a map (PDF) of the Northampton rail trail system.
Highlights from Presentation by Wayne Feiden
0:07:00… Introduction to the Twenty-Year Plan…wants to get bike trails and rail trails within half a mile of where 80% of the population lives
0:14:55… Norwottuck Extension
0:17:00… Manhan Rail Trail/Earle Grove…Nagle Walkway
0:20:34… Manhan Rail Trail Downtown Link…new bridges being built at Main Street and North Street…brief power outage of a few hours likely in the coming weeks…completion of this segment expected by end of Summer 2009
0:24:17… Florence Road Manhan Spur…serving Ice Pond area…Pathways…Rocky Hill cohousing
0:26:10… Norwottuck Leeds
0:29:36… Francis P. Ryan Norwottuck Jackson Street…CPA just funded this…serving the Jackson Street Elementary School
0:32:06… Manhan Village Hill…the developer of the State Hospital grounds is required to build a series of paths through their property…buildout is a couple of years away
0:33:00… Norwottuck Pan Am Railway Tunnel…railroad expressed initial reluctance to allow a tunnel to connect bike trails on either side near Woodmont Road..negotiations are now underway…”we’re making progress”
0:37:28… Manhan Ferry Street
0:41:03… West Farms Trail
0:43:49… Burt’s Pit Road Manhan Spur
0:45:47… Woods Road Manhan Spur
0:46:12… Hatfield Rail Trail
0:47:18… State Hospital N.H.S. Trail
0:50:12… Norwottuck to Williamsburg
0:51:16… Bicycle Facilities
0:57:51… Bicycle Paths (lanes)
1:08:00… Q&A with audience
See also:
Northamptonist: Cycling Safety And Transportation Priorities In Northampton MA (1/17/08)
Jackie raises a question for me that should be be addressed publicly by our city officials. With the long range plan for Northampton to become more of a destination, with more large scale development, more visitors and more traffic, what steps are being taken to provide equitable and safe transportation issues for all who live and visit here?
Portland Suburb Successfully Staves Off Densification
Oak
Grove remains unincorporated and thus under the jurisdiction of
Clackamas County. In 1995, county planners came to the neighborhood and
said they wanted to rezone the area to make it easier to walk around
and ride bicycles. There are no sidewalks in the area, but because the
area is so low in density, people do not hesitate to walk or ride
bicycles.
This
is a denser part of Oak Grove, where many of the houses are on
5,000-square-foot lots (about eight houses per acre). Even here, auto
traffic is so low that there is little conflict between walking and
driving.
