1. Residents interested in studying the issues involved in creating a rail trail out of the unused Bay Colony Railroad line should contact me ASAP.  The Board of Selectmen will appoint the citizen study committee at our 11/15 meeting.

2. Newton’s Chief Operating Officer, Bob Rooney, joined the ongoing meetings yesterday afternoon of the ad hoc, now four town, group examining the issues related to creating the Bay Colony Rail Trail.

Medfield’s Board of Selectmen will appoint to its own committee to study the Bay Colony Rail Trail at our 11/15 meeting.  Interested individuals should submit expressions of interest to Evelyn Clarke and/or me, along with a description of their qualifications and/or a CV.

This was what appeared in the Globe’s West Weekly about the Town of Dover seeking people to serve on its similar version of the same sort of committee:

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Trail panel seeking members

The town is looking for volunteers to serve on a committee overseeing plans for a local recreational trail. According to Carol Lisbon, who chairs both the Board of Selectmen and the Rail Trail Committee, the panel already has three citizen members but could use three or four more members, including some skeptics. “I firmly believe that on an issue like this we need to have people who are neutral, who are proponents, and opponents,” Lisbon said. The committee will be explore having Dover link with Medfield and Needham along the proposed Bay Colony Rail Trail. The 7-mile stretch is owned by the state, and leased by the MBTA to the Bay Colony Railroad, which no longer uses the tracks. A citizens group has been pressing for the creation of the regional recreational path since 2009, and Lisbon said she recently met with Medfield and Needham officials to discuss collaborating on the project. “Why should we all reinvent the wheel on this?” she said. “We need to get this committee together to work out the issues, which are many.” Interested applicants should contact the Board of Selectmen at 508-785-0032, ext. 221, or e-mail selectmen@doverma.org. – Jose Martinez

The ad hoc three town group meeting to study the issues relative to the Bay Colony Rail Trail proposal will meet with a representative from the City of Newton next Thursday.  Since there will be common issues for all the towns, Dover selectman chair convened the ad hoc three town group this past month to discuss those common issues.

At its meeting last night the selectmen created a committee to (1) study whether the town should create the Bay Colony Rail Trail and (2) make recommendations as to the issues involved.  The issues are already well defined, but not all the answers are clear.  It is hoped that the committee’s recommendation can be voted on at the town meeting in April.

Anyone interested in participating on the committee should advise Evelyn Clarke (eclarke@Medfield.net) of his/her interest before 11/15/11 when appointments to the committee will be made.

Ann Thompson opposed creating the committee, saying Medfield should first wait to see what Dover does at its town meeting in the spring, despite the fact that would postpone creation of the Bay Colony Rail Trail for another year (perhaps her real goal).

I met last Friday with Carol Libson, chair of the Dover selectmen, Patty Carey, Director of the Needham Park and Recreation Department, and Tad Staley of the Bay Colony Rail Trail organization.  Carol initiated the meeting to see if planning across our  three towns would facilitate and expedite the development of the Bay Colony Rail Trail.

Thinking and materials were shared, and a plan developed to move forward.  My piece was to seek to form a citizen study committee in Medfield that could evaluate the possibility and make recommendations on whether to move forward.  That issue is on the Board of Selectmen’s meeting agenda for this evening.

The Bay Colony Rail Trail is already a named priority in Needham’s strategic plan for its trails.  Carol Libson is working to get the issue before the Dover town meeting in the spring.  The Massachusetts Planning Organization should have its feasibility study done by the end of this year.

I have been asked to meet with Dover and Needham officials next week to discuss the Bay Colony Rail Trail –  I will let you know what comes out of the meeting.

Per Dover selectman Carol Lisbon, “Dover just completed its first citizen survey in 18 years in preparation for a new Master Plan and the question about the [proposed Bay Colony] Rail Trail was:

Would you favor converting the unused rail line passing through Needham, Dover, and Medfield into a ‘rail trail’ for walking and biking across the three towns?”

Results were overwhelmingly favorable:

24% (159) – No
40% (263) – Yes, if private property can be adequately protected
36% (240) – Yes, if construction and maintenance are funded privately and/or
with grants

Bay Colony Rail Trail – see nonprofit that creates rail trails at little to no cost by salvaging rails http://ping.fm/f90Qn