Who is a member?
Our members are the local governments of Massachusetts and their elected and appointed leadership.
Framingham and several other communities west of Boston are moving forward with plans to create walking and bicycling trails on top of a network of old Massachusetts Water Resources Authority aqueducts.
The hard-pack trails could eventually stretch a total of more than 40 miles, through woods and other open space, from Clinton to Marlborough, as well as from Southborough through Wayland and into Weston, and from Framingham through Sherborn, Natick, Wellesley, Needham and Newton.
In Framingham, the first section of trail, spanning just over a mile, was opened about a year ago, after roughly two years of work, according to Selectman Laurie Lee. A key step was when the MWRA agreed to continue to handle basic maintenance on the paths once they were open to walkers and cyclists.
“That was huge,” Lee said. “These are beautiful trails that will cost us absolutely nothing.”
Lee said that the Metropolitan Area Planning Council provided valuable assistance on the project.
Robert Merusi, Framingham’s parks and recreation director, noted that the existing 1.1-mile stretch of path has 134 abutters. He said that in building local support for such projects, it is important to provide regular updates to residents through letters, informal gatherings and other means.
In August, selectmen in Northborough approved a permit to open the 4.2 miles of land above the Wachusett aqueduct to the public. That step could eventually lead to a continuous path starting at the Marlborough/Northborough boundary and continuing northwest through Berlin and into Clinton.
MWRA spokeswoman Ria Convery said plans to use the surface above the aqueducts as recreational trails go back at least to the late 1990s. At that time, the aqueduct network was still the primary conduit of water for much of the Boston area, and security concerns loomed large after the 2001 terrorist attacks.
But since 2003, when the MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel opened, the old aqueducts have served only as an emergency back-up system, Convery said.