April showers slowed early work on construction of the multi-use bike and walker trail along the north side of Mountain Road, but when the weather cleared, initial markings, excavation, grading, and even some concrete pouring progressed well. (Most of the trail will be asphalt.) Without unexpected delays, more schoolkids may be able to ride or walk to the middle and intermediary schools in the fall. Perhaps a few more parents will walk with their primary students to Spaulding School.
Photo by Lester Smith
One of the Spazzarini crews is at work grading for the new trail that is being constucted along Mountain Road. This scene is just east of the first intersection with Plantation Drive, where the trail will be five feet wide and concrete. Most of the trail will be ten feet wide and made of asphalt.
As the trail progresses, one or two teams of Spazzarini construction excavators, bulldozers, narrow road rollers, etc., have been working to regrade next to the highway and prepare for the trail pavement. Police have been controlling periods of alternating traffic and shorter periods of full closure, as so much of the work involves equipment moving on the highway.
Two statements in the Observer’s April report on the trail need clarification or correction. The drawings this writer referred to included an older layout of the stretch in front of the police station, without a trail connection between Spaulding School and the existing sidewalk in front of homes on the south side of Mountain Road. That omission was corrected in other drawings to include the planned new sidewalk along that stretch, where concrete has now already been poured.
The other statement concerned the planned three-rail wooden fence. That is to be installed only in several limited regions, and only on the north side of the trail.
In a recent discussion, Town Engineer Karen Isherwood mentioned that some landowners along the trail were concerned that they might have the responsibility to clear snow from the trail, which involves long stretches in some cases.
Isherwood explained that, because of the way in which this project was initiated and financed, that obligation falls to the Town, not the property owners. The highway crew or a town contractor will have that task.