The rail trail corridor that traverses Salem, Windham, Derry, and Londonderry, NH, comprises the southernmost 15-or-so miles of the Granite State Rail Trail. There are just a few remaining gaps to fill to connect all the way from the Massachusetts border at Methuen (and the Methuen Rail Trail) and Manchester, the state’s largest city — south of Main St. in Salem (which will partially be built by a private developer); between Derry town center and State Route 28 in Derry and Londonderry; and from Manchester Airport (MHT) at Harvey Rd. toward the Manchester city center (part of which is in NHDOT’s Draft 2021-30 Ten Year Plan).
As those gap-filling projects move forward, however, the trails are getting a number of minor improvements whose value shouldn’t be overlooked.
New trail counters
Last week, the Derry Rail Trail Alliance posted that the Town of Derry and Southern New Hampshire Planning Commission (SNHPC) staff had installed a trail counter on the Derry Rail Trail.
Trail counters are great assets for any trail, and the data they provide is so valuable for active transportation planning purposes. They typically allow an agency or organization to:
- Gather long-term, continuous, 24/7/365 usage data at a low marginal cost
- Estimate daily, weekly, monthly, and annual trail users
- Develop seasonal factors to show how much trail usage varies between spring, summer, fall, and winter. These factors can then be used to sharpen estimates of seasonal or annual usage on other trails that only have had short-term user counts.
- Develop hour-of-day and day-of-year factoring, which may be a more precise way of using long-term data on one facility to estimate long-term usage on another facility that has only had short-term user counts, e.g. manual counts during only peak hours on two calendar dates
- Disaggregate between user types, e.g. people on bike or people walking
- Disaggregate by direction
- Use this data in planning processes or grant applications
The richness of the data collected may depend in part on the technical capability of the counter and the counter avoiding malfunctioning, damage, or sensor obstruction, any of which could hinder an accurate count. SNHPC already has a Bicycle/Pedestrian Counting Program that receives data from a number of counters on the regional rail trail corridor, sidewalks, and other locations, so the new Derry Rail Trail Counter will add another data source.
Trail maintenance in Windham
A portion of the rail trail in Windham, which had been closed for much of June for critical repairs, is open again with the completion of the project. The segment of trail, called the “Rainforest section”, runs from Mitchell Pond to Roulston Rd. As posted by the Windham Rail Trail Alliance on May 25:
After a 5 year fundraising effort, and the successful passing of a Warrant Article to support, we are pleased to announce that work will start to repair the Rainforest section on Monday June 1, and will require closure of the work section.
This is critical work as the current condition of that section with inadequate drainage, surface damage and the challenging frost heaves are causing serious safety concerns. For these reasons we determined it is best to address as soon as we can, and have ready for July on…
The Rainforest section of trail reopened on June 29, right on schedule for the arrival of July!
Jeff Brubaker 