I wrote a post recently called Stitching Walking Trails Together.That post was about stairs that will soon be built to connect the Upper Falls Greenway to the Charles River Pathway. It was also about how each connection between existing trails makes all the trails more valuable to the public.
This week there was some encouraging news about another significant piece of the walking trails puzzle.
Thanks to a MassTrails grant, Newton and Needham have together launched a feasibility study to look at plans for restoration of the Christina St bridge in Upper Falls.
The Christina St Bridge is an old disused railroad bridge that crosses the Charles River, and connects Newton and Needham. On the Needham side of the river, the bridge connects to the DCR’s Blue Heron Trail which runs for miles along the river, through Cutler Park and beyond. On the Newton side there is the potential to eventually connect to the Upper Falls Greenway.
Here’s a 2 1/2 min video that describes the project.
Here’s a survey soliciting the public’s interests in the project. If you have any interest in the project I urge you to take the brief survey and give your input.
Once they’ve got public feedback, they will organize a pubic meeting sometime in April to present more details.
The video does a really good job explaining the project, the options and even location.
This should be like adapted as a best practice more often.
Great vision, patience, and persistence from the Greenway organizers on making these connections. Looking forward to more!
Greg I am glad you like the video. I suggested it at a Planning meeting for the project. We were looking for new ways to engage with the public. Of course it helps that Claire did such a fabulous job with the video.
This project is an important link in creating a more useable network of paths.
What a sensible project. I hope it moves along quickly. As Jerry suggests, the value of such networks rises exponentially as more nodes and links are added. And with the new developments in that part of town, there will be an increased demand for such amenities.
Alicia, I’m assuming you are referring to Claire Rundelli, Assistant Environmental Planner with the City of Newton. Yes, she did an excellent job with the video, and–as Greg suggests–this is a great technique for stimulating more relevant public comments about a proposed project.
It would be helpful to know the range of the possible costs and likely revenue sources.
@Adam – the Greenway folks have definitely been cheering this project on but it’s been Newton’s Planning Dept and our Ward 5 and 8 Councilors (and Alicia Bowman) who’ve been driving this bus.
I’m a big fan of Jennifer Steel and Claire Rundelli the City’s Environmental Planners. On all sorts of different projects they always seems to be keeping their eyes out for ways to bolster our walk’able trails throughout the city. I love that.
This is a fantastic initiative (especially since the Price Center put a chain on the gate in 2019), but its addressable audience is very limited because the Needham Industrial Center, err “N^2 Innovation District” is surrounded on all sides by cyclist death traps, i.e. the Kendrick St./128 interchange; the absurd 60-mph, lane-shifting, funnel-ized mess of Kendrick/Nahanton; and of course the worst of them all, the Highland Ave. interchange.
Unless you’re going 20 mph or greater, forget about surviving a trip in that green bike lane over the Exit 35 (né Exit 19) interchange between Speedway and Muzi. A couple of weeks ago I had the joy of trying to cycle across it at reduced speed because I was towing my daughter’s new (empty) tag-along trailer back from Landry’s. I’ll never forget it – literally a near-death experience at each and every one of the four ramps, and all I was trying to do was go straight in a bike lane where I theoretically had the right of way.
By far the most useful extension of the Upper Falls Greenway would of course be along the unused tracks that are rusting away between the Charles River and the Needham Heights MBTA station. For reasons that were never abundantly clear, a Needham Select Board member virulently blocked that extension for the last decade. That individual announced in February that he will not be running for reelection, so within the next couple of weeks we will have one or perhaps two new select board members who are significantly more sympathetic to cyclists and pedestrians. It’s worth noting that MassDOT is obligated to replace the rail bridge over 128 that it dismantled during Add-A-Lane.
Although I hope things are changing, Needham has consistently gone out of its way to prevent the creation of useful or safe cycling infrastructure. For example, a 1.3-mile rail trail was constructed on the former train tracks southwest of Needham Junction to the Dover line, but it’s completely inaccessible by anybody who would want to use it, especially its target demographic (given that it goes nowhere) of kids, families, or people out for a stroll. The northern end of the trail, toward the population center of the town, has no outlet – my family tried to access it to test out our aforementioned tag-along trailer, but you have to trudge through mud and ford a pretty deep stream to get to the beginning of it. And of course Dover fenced off the bridge over the river, which limits the rail trail’s access points to two dangerous, sidewalk-less high-speed streets (Charles River St. and Fisher St.) or else a schlep through mud, streams, and over sharp rocks in the forest.
Or I guess you could drive down and park in the parking lot at Red Wing Bay – because in Needham, that’s what we do – we put our bikes on our cars, so that we can take them someplace to use them.
Hoorah! Both pedestrians and cyclists need this project to bear fruit.
A few years ago, Devra Bailin (then Needham’s Economic Development Director, now Newton’s), Kathryn Ellis (then Newton’s ED and now working for UMass Amherst at Mt Ida), and I were giving a tour to a group of urban planning officials visiting from China. We’d shown them a lot of great stuff, but then took them on a walk along the path from the Charles River Apartments in Needham across this bridge.
Of everything they saw, this was the absolute favorite. They spent 10 minutes here taking pictures and just enjoying the water, the trees, and all the serenity just steps from the various office parks. It’s a great spot and I can’t wait until we can connect it to a the Upper Falls Greenway.
Just make the Price Center open that damned gate! If the bridge is safe enough to walk from the Needham side, it should be safe enough to walk from the Newton side.
Susan Spitz, a resident from the community, brought this to the city’s attention early 2019 when, after using and having access to this bridge for years and years, suddenly found it locked from the Newton side by the Price Center, who had recently moved to the site (from west newton). The sudden and inexplicable closure cut her and many others off from activities they had enjoyed for decades. This is a highly worthwhile endeavor and I hope the City follows through.
Crossing that bridge over the years ( usually with my bicycle) has always been a challenge and balancing act between standing on one rail while centering my bicycle tires on the opposite rail.
For pure safety concerns this renovation needs to be done. For my own personal reasons I’m going to miss the old bridge even in its dilapidated state.
Do any attorneys reading this blog know if access through what is now the Price Center would be a prescriptive easement under Mass. General Law?