Editor:
These are the key reasons I support Town Meeting Articles 47 and 48, which call for ending the spending on Segment 7 of the proposed Upper Charles Trail (UCT), and call for a change in the Upper Charles Trail Committee (UCTC) to help ensure a result the whole town can support:
- Segment 7 has major safety concerns, would take property from homeowners and/or realign Hayden Rowe St., would be much more costly to build and maintain than an alternative, and its construction would be very disruptive.
- The UCTC has not sufficiently considered the proposed alternative called the western route. It was referred to by one UCTC member in a letter to the editor as “hoped-for” and “not viable.” Many townspeople beg to differ. While no route will be ideal, a side-by-side comparison of the options is a rational and expected way to assess them. That comparison should be done before more money is spent to advance Segment 7.
- The UCTC has not sufficiently addressed feedback from town groups and residents. The School Committee voted against the proposed route, and many residents have expressed dissatisfaction with it as well. The UCTC serves the town, but too many residents feel the UCTC is not hearing them.
- Because after 10 years of work and over $300,000 spent, the UCTC has produced results that many have found to be unsatisfactory, and because the UCTC has not been responsive to the public feedback, a change to the committee is warranted.
- HopNews expressed the opinion that Article 47 “seems to be a power play.” It is anything but. Article 47’s proposal to reconstitute the UCTC is a means to address the problems. Having the UCTC become a subcommittee of the TCMC makes sense given that the TCMC’s charge is to coordinate and manage trails in town. The UCTC might have naturally started out as a subcommittee of the TCMC, but the UCTC was formed about six years before the TCMC existed. Because the TCMC is also charged with fostering community engagement, that much-needed experience would be brought to the Upper Charles Trail project.
For more information, see the fact sheet from the group Hopkinton for a Safe Upper Charles Trail at bit.ly/41RCsRm.
Linda Chuss, Member of the Trails Coordination and Management Committee
11 School Street, Hopkinton MA
Agreed on all points, but especially #4. Credit to the UCTC for all they’ve done, given the difficulty of the project, but they seem to have stalled and the current design proposal is a dead end. It’s time for fresh eyes.
Can you post a map of your proposed “western route”?
The link to the fact sheet is not working but you can see it if you type the url (bit.ly/41RCsRm) by hand. In the fact sheet is a link to the western route and much more info. But here is a link to a map of the proposed western route – hopkintontrailsclub.com/uct/map1_alternative_route.pdf
The proposed western Route is the same one the Trails Club presented in January 2022, and is actually on the UCTC’s page on the town website under trail alignment plans/Lidar March 2022. That plan continues to show the Daniel Road crossing, which is no longer being considered based on discussions with the neighbors.
The Select Board in the past year has appointed three new members to the Upper Charles Trail Committee and they have brought new, fresh ideas to the conversation.
The UCTC voted unanimously to put the (eastern) approach or Segment 7 ON HOLD until Mr. LaGoy, the Trails Club and the Trails Coordination and Management Committee (TCMC) complete the Western Alternative pre-engineering study, including a bridge crossing over Rt 85 near the Milford UCT parking lot. They plan to complete some of this work using monies they hope to receive at this Annual Town Meeting.
To be fair the UCTC did look at the western alternative a few years ago and found three obstacles that we could not surmount at the time.
1)private property acquisitions- you can’t force someone to sell their land if they don’t want to,
2)wetland delineations- with a project this complex the State will only allow a certain percentage of the project to negatively impact wetlands over the entire seven mile route, meaning every section must be carefully considered. The southern section holds the bulk of the wetlands for this project and in that respect a bridge over Rt 85 would be attractive
3)a bridge crossing over Rt 85 near the Milford UCT parking lot, which would need to be built to State DOT standards and mostly in the town of Milford. This committee did reach out to Milford several years ago with negative results.
Having said all that I do support Mr. LaGoys’ and others efforts to repeat this exercise and hope he and his colleagues have a positive resolution and the the UCTC, TCMC the Trails Club and other trail groups can continue to collaborate and make Hopkinton the most progressive trails oriented town in the state.
While the UCTC may have voted to slow work on Segment 7 (Hayden Rowe), they continue to spend funds on Segment 6, by the Marathon School, a segment that has no value without Segment 7. Furthermore, Mr. Snyder’s earlier letter indicates that at least some members continue to see Segment 7 as the “only viable route.”
And as to private property concerns being an impediment, that issue has been an impediment of convenience for the UCTC. The fact that they knew (UCTC/VHB July 2017 report on Phase 4) that private property taking would be required on Hayden Rowe did not slow them from presenting that route in their December 2021 meeting and associated maps.
Why are there always commercial trucks parked in the Hugh’s trail lot. I can never find parking spot? There are also always vehicles parked there after dark?