Sturbridge 7-27-07 (Page 1) - Stonebridge Press and Villager ...

Friday, October 31, 2008
• STURBRIDGE VILLAGER 15
‘Super trail’ seeks real name, advocates
BY GUS STEEVES
NEWS STAFF WRITER
Advocates of the so-called
“Super Trail” are looking for
ideas for a permanent name and
for people to befriend certain
parts of its route.
At the moment largely an entity
on paper, the trail is an 80-mile
combination of segments of
already-existing multi-use paths
from Palmer to Franklin. Among
them are the Quinebaug Valley
Rail Trail and the Grand Trunk
Trail, running through the
Southbridge area, and the
Southern New England
Trunkline Trail (SNETT),
through the Blackstone Valley.
“I’m pretty frustrated at not
being able to call it something,
and before long these newspapers
will have it be the ‘super trail’
forever,” said Grand Trunk
Trailblazers President Pat
McGarrah of Sturbridge.
“[Regarding members,] we’re
pretty good through Thompson to
Sturbridge, with lots of coverage
in between … but there’s several
towns [to the east].”
Proponents from several of the
towns gathered at Thompson
Library last week to update each
other on where things stand.
Among the ideas already suggested
are the Titanic Trail, named in
part after the fact the first man
who thought of a rail trail here
died on the Titanic, the Pioneer
Blackstone Trail, after the two
major river valleys at either end,
and the Quittemug Trail. The latter
was a Nipmuc Indian who carried
food from this area to Boston
along the Indians’ extensive network
of foot trails during the
1630s, according to proponent
Ken Butkewicz of Dudley.
McGarrah said he’d accept
other suggestions for a while at
www.grandtrunktrailblazers.org,
after which members of the
groups involved will vote on their
favorite. The requirements are
fairly simple — they need to be
“easy to spell, pronounce and
write” and “unique — at least to
the area, preferably to the trail
universe,” McGarrah said. “We
really want to respect our history.”
The latter requirement was a
reason the easier to spell Nipmuc
Trail was rejected — there’s
already one in Connecticut, he
noted.
“Our plan is not to have it be
exclusively a bike trail,” he added
later. “Currently, the biggest
users on the SNETT are equestrians,
so in time we may have a
dual-use trail. We never want to
exclude equestrians.”
McGarrah said the effort especially
needs people from the
Palmer area and the Blackstone
Valley; ideally, “friends of the
trail” groups or trail committees
should form in every town along
its length so that local people are
speaking up for it to the various
town governments involved.
Informal efforts exist in
Brimfield,
Sturbridge,
Southbridge, Webster and
Thompson; Dudley is forming a
trail committee; and the Douglas
section is shepherded largely by
representatives of the state
Department of Conservation and
Recreation and the Bay State
Trail Riders, an equestrian
group.
DCR’s Cary Van den Akker is
coordinating a trail clearing day
with power tools in Douglas for
sometime after Jan. 1.
All of the areas need people,
they said.
Southbridge’s Scott Benoit said
he plans to visit all of the towns
along the route to talk to their
selectmen and advocates for creation
of such groups. He also
noted an umbrella group is forming
to advocate for rail trails
statewide, with a database allowing
people to look up individual
trails, towns or groups.
Ken Pickren, chairman of the
Southbridge Trail Committee
and Conservation Commission,
agreed that’s necessary, noting
that it’s often hard to get government
or chambers of commerce
interested when they “don’t have
a clue. They don’t hike and don’t
bike.”
Pickren noted town governments
often want financial estimates
and other evidence, at
least.
“We’re dotting our ‘i’s and
crossing our ‘t’s, but don’t have a
finite cost assessment,” he said.
“We need some tangible to show
them, especially pictures and
maps.”
In fact, the Southbridge Town
Council just accepted a $2,900
grant to create a map of its section
detailing the existing conditions.
Pickren said the group
should compile a CD/DVD for the
entire route of maps, details of
attractions along the route, side
trails, and a “punch list” of what
needs to be done with cost estimates.
Because the route is not a
coherent whole, the trail tends to
become either overgrown due to
lack of maintenance, needs
bridges, or deteriorates due to
dumping and ATV use (which is
illegal on most trails except in a
few state forests out west, according
to Retired DCR Ranger Bill
Annese).
“If you open it up, you’re going
to invite trouble,” he said. “I’d
clear it out and put big boulders
up. That’ll block access pretty
cheaply.”
Several participants had ideas
of how to solve the work problem.
Annese said DCR twice used the
National Guard, a Rotary Club
project cleared and widened
about a mile of it from “a narrow
foot trail to 40’ wide,” and other
community service projects are
helpful.
McGarrah also noted the county
jail loans prisoners to work on
community projects and might be
amenable to trail work.
Furthermore, he said, local construction
firms are usually helpful
with loaning equipment, but
“dirt and diesel” are what tend to
be expensive.
In general, he added, the state
tends to support trail projects,
but exactly how they do so is
sometimes a mixed blessing.
MassHighway, for example, held a
recent weekend forum on them, is
able “to squash negative comments
pretty quickly” because of
successful projects, and is usually
willing to fund projects. But
the agency’s construction
requirements tend to be rigid,
with regulations that require
agency-funded projects to handle
the weight of ambulances even if
there’s no way for an ambulance
to get to the stretch of trail
they’re funding.
“We’ve had such poor experience
with MassHighway [on the
ground]. They build roads, and to
them a bike trail is just another
road,” McGarrah said.
Gus Steeves can be reached at
508-909-4135 or by e-mail at
gsteeves@stonebridgepress.com.
Police urge motorists to lock cars after Arnold Road incidents
CARS
continued from page 1
As of midday yesterday, no additional
incidents had been reported, nor had any
definitive suspects been identified.
“We don’t have a suspect yet,” Sturbridge
Detective Mark Saloio said yesterday. “That
could change either today or tomorrow.”
Saloio said that the investigation would
take a more definite shape once interviews
were conducted with a few individuals the
police were working on locating.
Saloio also said that besides the ATV
theft, the cars that were broken into had
been left unlocked, allowing easy access to
the assailants who did not have to break any
glass to gain entry to the cars.
The detective said that, “change and
whatnot,” had been taken from the vehicles.
To safeguard against further break-ins,
Saloio said, “Lock your car, that’s common
sense.”
“Not to condone what’s being done,”
Saloio continued. “But when we make it
easier for people to do things like that, this
is what happens.”
Whereas these last few crimes have been
committed in a concentrated area, this is
not the first time Sturbridge has had to deal
with auto break-ins.
“It has happened in other areas in the
past,” Saloio said. “We’ve charged other
individuals with the breaks, but we don’t
believe those individuals have anything to
do with the Arnold Road incident,” he
explained.
“Over the last year or so, there seems to
be a pattern of breaks,” Saloio added, saying
that surrounding towns have all dealt
with similar issues in the recent past.
Last year at this time, police in the town
of Leicester had their hands full with more
than 60 car break-ins that took place over a
series of weekends between July and
September.
One Arnold Road resident said that with
the current economic climate, increased
crime was foreseeable.
“It’s been going on in other towns, but you
hope that it won’t hit your town,” said the
resident who wished to remain anonymous.
“I hope they catch the people that are
doing it,” the resident continued, explaining
that the car kept at that particular residence
is always locked and is parked
beneath a motion activated light.
“The light goes on when you walk in the
driveway,” making the atmosphere outside
the home safer, the resident said.
An Arnold Road neighbor, who also
wished to remain anonymous, said she was
surprised to hear about the rash of crime
on that one street.
“It seems to be a decent neighborhood,”
she said.
“It’s probably just kids being kids,” she
added. “Unfortunately I think it happens in
every neighborhood at one point or another.”
Police are actively pursuing information
in the car break-ins and ATV theft. Any suspicious
activity should be reported to the
Sturbridge Police Department.
News staff writer Christopher Tanguay
may be reached at (508) 909-4132, or by e-mail
at ctanguay@stonebridgepress.com.
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