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Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Rail trail links Windham, Standish
Copyright © 2003 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. | ||||||
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WINDHAM — A few yards north of several youth soccer fields here is a stretch of crushed gravel that runs parallel to an abandoned railroad, wide enough to drive a golf cart on - but designed for a different purpose. The 4.5-mile trail, to be officially opened Tuesday, is the first leg of what some hope will eventually become a 45-mile, bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly route from Windham to Fryeburg. Officials hope the trail - one of more than 1,000 of its type nationwide - will eventually provide access to remote spaces. But a congressional subcommittee's recent vote not to fund the federal program that supports development of such trails has left advocates worried projects like the Mountain Division Rail With Trail will be shelved. The trail, which now stretches from the Gambo Recreational Area in Windham to the Johnson Field Recreational Area in Standish, is expected to be a hit with local hikers and bicyclists. "It's a great thing to do with these abandoned railroad beds," said Dave Kinsman, chairman of the Mountain Division Alliance, one of the groups sponsoring the trail. Kinsman said "rail trails" are popular elsewhere but have yet to catch on in Maine. Currently, the state has 15 rail trails, while New Hampshire has 52. Several states have well over 100. Workers broke ground at the site in late October, and finished the Windham to Standish leg of the trail in May. Signs were not posted until last week. Although the trail has been accessible since May, project coordinators wanted to wait until a grand opening ceremony next week to officially open the route. The 10 a.m. ceremony next Tuesday, they said, will be attended by Gov. John Baldacci and serve mainly to publicize the trail. On Tuesday, a pair of bicyclists, water bottles at the hip, unloaded mountain bikes from a green minivan and headed west from the beginning of the trail near Gambo Road. Earlier, a small group of teenagers walked to a small bridge overlooking the Presumpscot River. Another mountain biker, Linda Besore, rode her bicycle on the trail during her lunch break. "I started riding (the trail) in April," said Besore, who works in Windham. "There's a lot of good scenery along the way. There's a river, and if you get farther out there are farmlands." John Balicki, bicycle and pedestrian coordinator at the Maine Department of Transportation, said the department plans to expand the trail from Gambo Road to Route 202 this fall, and do some work on the Gorham side of the trail near the Presumpscot River. That could change, Balicki said, if funding is discontinued for the federal Transportation Enhancements program, which provided 80 percent of the trail's $1.25 million cost. The federal program also funds several other scenic and historic preservation projects. On July 11, a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee voted to eliminate funding for the $620 million program for the next fiscal year. A vote by the full Appropriations Committee is expected later this week. Ken Rosenfeld, advocacy manager for the Rails to Trails Conservatory in Washington, said communities that build such trails rely on federal funds. Maine has received more than $29 million in Transportation Enhancement funds over the past 10 years. Because the state department of transportation operates on a two-year budget, cutting federal funding for one year would delay expansion of the Mountain Division project by two years, Balicki said. If federal funding remains intact, Balicki said organizers expect the full, 45-mile trail to be complete in 10-15 years.
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