3 minute read
Right as Rail: Take a trip through West Concord on the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail
BY CARLENE HEMPEL
Laura Davis laughs as she ticks off all the ways she’s built her family’s life around the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail in Concord.
“I basically moved everything in my life to West Concord so I could get to it on a bike,” said the 35-year-old Concord resident. “So, my dentist, my doctor, the barber, we do most of our shopping at Debra’s or Trader Joe’s. We use the bike path to go to Staples. I am coming here with my husband on the bike tonight for a date night at Wood’s Hill Table” restaurant.
Davis, who lives near Verrill Farm and rides a “cargo bike,” which has a large carrying bin installed over the front wheel, is one of thousands of people who have relished the construction of the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail through Concord starting at the bridge over Rte. 2 near Acton and continuing just before White Pond in West Concord.
About 20 miles long so far, the trail begins in Lowell, travels through Chelmsford, Westford, Carlisle, and Acton before it runs through Concord and by this fall will end just north of Rte. 20 in Sudbury. It’s still under design in parts of Sudbury and Framingham and will total about 25 miles when it’s completed.
Features of the Concord portion of the trail include stops at the newly constructed Gerow Park near Warner’s Pond, which includes walking trails and a pavilion, and West Concord Village, which has everything from quaint shops and restaurants to galleries, a library, a natural foods store, a performing arts center, conservatory, and an MBTA train station. Soon, the trail will travel along the White Pond Reservation area as it winds into Sudbury. Along the way are benches, bike racks, a bike share site, and a bike repair station.
Kim Kelly, a resident of Brookside Square apartments on Beharrell Street in West Concord, walks 10 miles on the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail every day. “I love it,” she said on a recent breezy May morning. “I call it the cheapest gym membership in town.” She also loves how multi-generational the trail is. “It’s very family friendly. What I love is there are always teenagers on it. It’s really inspiring. They could be inside playing video games.”
Davis, who had just dropped her 6-year-old son at Concord Montessori School on Domino Drive and was peddling to a Transportation Advisory Committee meeting where she serves as a volunteer, said she sees this leg of the BFRT as vital to the vision of a connected Concord. “We don’t have a lot of long, continuous, safe places for people to walk and bike separated from traffic,” she said from the center of the Junction Park gardens, next to favorite breakfast stop Club Car Café. “As a cyclist who uses the bike for transportation, I need that path to get [around] safely.”
Carlene Hempel is a resident of West Concord.
