Back from a long writing break! We’re well into trail riding and construction season here in New England, and there’s been so much progress on trail development. I have a lot to catch up on.
Starting in Southern Maine, the vision for completing the Eastern Trail took a big step forward last month. On Bike to Work Day, Representative Chellie Pingree, the Eastern Trail Alliance (ETA), and East Coast Greenway Alliance (ECGA) held a press conference announcing the award of $700,000 in funding for extending the trail south from Kennebunk, through Wells, to North Berwick.
The trail currently ends at Kennebunk Elementary School. The 11-mile extension to North Berwick is a major goal of the ETA’s Blazing the Trail South campaign. The ETA and the partner communities — through the Eastern Trail Management District (ETMD) — had already set the table by conducting an existing conditions survey and feasibility work in the corridor. In fact, the feasibility study (PDF) for two key segments within the 11-mile corridor was finalized the day before the press conference. So the $700,000 in federal funding secured by Rep. Pingree, which is an enumerated Community Project in the FY2022 Appropriations Bill, has come at a good time to keep the project moving through final design so that it is shovel-ready. The appropriation will be matched by $210,000 from the ETA (Portland Press Herald).
As the above link describes, the ETA is already thinking about the next chapter in the campaign: blazing the trail further south from North Berwick through South Berwick, Eliot, and Kittery. (Full disclosure: I work for the Town of Eliot.) But for now, ETA, ECGA, and Southern Maine communities can celebrate the fact that the construction of the Kennebunk-North Berwick segment is coming into clearer focus in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future.
On June 4, I rode with a small group from Kennebunk Elementary to Biddeford, before continuing on to the John Andrews Memorial Walk/Run.
The trail is a popular spot, said Kennebunk Elementary School Principal Ryan Quinn. “Parents bring their bikes at the end of the day,” he said, and families go out for a ride along the trail.
Portland Press Herald
Jeff Brubaker 