Cape Cod Magazine - Cape Cod Rail Trail Article

A Bumpy Ride:
Building the Cape
62 CAPE COD MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2014 www.capecodmagazine.com

Cod Rail Trail
BY MARY CHAFFEE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL SCHARFF
www.capecodmagazine.com OCTOBER 2014 CAPE COD MAGAZINE 63

The Cape Cod Rail Trail, a 22-mile-long asphalt ribbon,
curls gently through six Cape towns from Dennis
to Wellfleet. Now used by thousands each year and
viewed as a top Cape attraction, its story has more bumps than
the original trail surface. In the early 1970s, several Cape leaders
proposed turning a bankrupt stretch of railroad into a paved
linear park. Agitated abutters squawked that it would attract
“Peeping Toms and hippies.” Many design problems lurked and
funding was needed at a time when the Massachusetts economy
was in dire straits.
Despite the obstacles, a bike path would be born from the vestiges
of a railroad—one of the first in the United States. Nearly 35
years old, the trail’s existence is testament to an idea whose time
had come, the persistence of its advocates, and the vision of Gov.
Michael Dukakis, who was convinced a park not much wider
than a driveway would reap big benefits.
The Cape Cod Rail Trail story starts in the glory days of the
nation’s railroads. Tracks crept onto Cape Cod during the mid-
1800s and, by 1872, they stretched to Provincetown, Chatham and
Falmouth. But in the 1900s, when riders deserted the rails for the
roads, passenger rail service on Cape Cod began to decline.
The Penn Central Railroad purchased most of the decayed
Cape rail system in 1969, then declared bankruptcy the following
year. Though some freight service continued, the tracks east
of Hyannis that had carried vacationers to summer cottage colonies
were abandoned. When the insolvent Penn Central started
selling off assets in the early 1970s, the town of Orleans spotted a
bargain. It snapped up more than two miles of railroad property
within its borders for $61,000. Some thought it might be used to
expand Orleans’ commercial town center, but that was not to be.
Enter Sherman Reed, now an 86-year-old with a booming
voice and robust laugh. In 1973, when he moved to Orleans as
a 45-year-old newly retired naval officer, the marine engineer
and naval architect wanted to get involved in town politics. Reed
needed credibility with his new neighbors, so he was urged to
tackle a “project.” That sounded simple enough. He agreed to
work with Wallace Ruckert, chair of neighboring Eastham’s bikeways
committee.
Ruckert had an idea for what some viewed as a harebrained
scheme. He wanted to build a bike path stretching through sev-
64 CAPE COD MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2014 www.capecodmagazine.com

eral Cape towns on land largely owned by a bankrupt railroad.
His idea was far from a municipal planning slam-dunk. Notably,
there were no bicyclists clamoring for it. But Reed, Ruckert and
Evan Wylie of Brewster joined forces to tackle what Reed called
“an obsessive project.” The Cape Cod Rail Trail would consume
the next eight years of Reed’s life.
The trio recognized the trail’s potential health benefits and
became bike-path evangelists. However, many of their Cape
neighbors didn’t share their enthusiasm. The planners faced a
public relations problem. “There was a lot of concern and apprehension
about how the public was going to behave themselves,”
said Gilbert Bliss, then director of the Massachusetts
Division of Forests and Parks.
Reed goes further: “We had 16 miles of ‘Not in my backyards!’”
James “Jim” Ehrhart, then Brewster’s police chief, confirms
Reed’s observation. “There was vocal opposition from people
who felt it was going to be a major disruption to their privacy.”
Ehrhart owned property abutting the trail and welcomed it, but
he says others were fearful. The trail planners held many meetings
to allay concerns and promote their asphalt vision.
While the planners contended with a chorus of opposition, they
had decisions to make. Paving would require accoutrements like
graded shoulders, safety railings and fences, intersection safety
strategies, vegetation care, pavement markings, and signs.
The proposed trail would be constructed down the center of the
80-foot-wide former rail right-of-way and would initially cross
five towns. The Cape Cod Planning and Economic Development
Commission (the predecessor of today’s Cape Cod Commission)
Dennis Third-Grader Wins Rail Trail Naming Contest
Eric Dubin, a 44-year-old engineer raised in Dennis, tells people
in corporate “icebreaker” games that when he was a child he
named the Cape Cod Rail Trail. They usually don’t believe him,
but it’s true.
Initially, the trail was referred to as the “Outer Cape bicycle
path” or “the Dennis-to-Eastham bikeway” but as groundbreaking
approached, the project needed a proper name. The planners
turned to Cape Cod schoolchildren. Students in the bike
trail towns were invited to participate in a naming contest.
And the winner was Dubin, then a third-grader at Ezra
Baker School in Dennis. His entry, “Cape Cod Rail Trail,” topped
156 others. On May 8, 1979, state officials awarded Dubin
a 10-speed bike at a Nickerson State Park ceremony. Scott
Pearson, an eighth-grader at Dennis’ Wixon Middle School,
also received a bike for winning the trail’s logo contest. His
design was used on the rail trail’s original signage. Pearson,
like Dubin, became an engineer and now is an energy industry
executive. He and Dubin have remained in touch over the
years, thanks to their link as contest champs.
Cycling remains important to Dubin, now a married father
of two boys. In 2013, he biked the Cape Cod Rail Trail with his
sons for the first time. For four years, Dubin has participated
in a 150-mile multiple sclerosis cycling fundraiser. Part of the
Boston-to-Provincetown route includes the trail he named 35
years ago. “That’s meaningful to me,” Dubin says. “I feel like I
have a strong connection to it.” — Mary Chaffee
PHOTOS COURTESY OF JUDITH DUBIN
Third-grader Eric Dubin (left), came up with the Cape Cod Rail Trail name in 1979,
and eighth-grader Scott Pearson won the trail’s logo contest, whose design was
used on the rail trail’s original signage. Both boys, who remain in touch to this day,
received a bike for their winning efforts.
www.capecodmagazine.com OCTOBER 2014 CAPE COD MAGAZINE 65

The Cape Cod Rail Trail attracts thousands of visitors each year. But Cape residents were initially hesitant about the 22-mile path near
their homes. “There was a lot of concern and apprehension about how the public was going to behave themselves,” said Gilbert Bliss,
former director of the Massachusetts Division of Forests and Parks.
launched a bikeways subcommittee that permitted the rail trail
communities to synchronize their efforts and resolve problems.
When the Cape’s rail routes were discontinued, the railroad
company tore up the tracks and sold them for salvage. Once tracks
vanished, abutters crept onto and across the rail bed. Trail planners
discovered they had squatters and had to negotiate with each one.
The most serious encroachment was in Harwich. “Someone had
built a gas station on the right-of-way,” said Gilbert Bliss. Planners
acquired additional land for the trail to bypass the gas station.
The state of the Massachusetts economy loomed large over
planning efforts. “We had the second-highest unemployment
rate in the nation,” says former Gov. Dukakis. Despite the dismal
economic climate, he green-lighted rail trail funding.
Dukakis knows the area well – his wife Kitty’s family has a
Cape home. He viewed the rail trail as an important open space
initiative at a time when some of the Commonwealth’s environment
was in as deep trouble as its economy. “The public realm
was generally being trashed,” says Dukakis. “The Boston Common
and Public Garden were drug supermarkets. Boston Harbor
was a sewer.”
According to a 1975 Cape Cod Times article, Dukakis agreed
to budget $600,000 to buy railroad property between Dennis and
Eastham – the tipping point that moved efforts off the drawing
board and into the dirt. Three years later, in October 1978, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts acquired 14 miles of abandoned
railroad by eminent domain, paying the Penn Central $515,000.
By March 1980, a 20-foot-wide strip was cleared from Dennis
to Eastham. Local politicians marked the trail’s birth with a
ribbon-cutting ceremony at Nickerson State Park in Brewster on
Aug. 13, 1980. It was an important milestone, but there was plenty
to do before bike tires or running shoes would hit the blacktop.
Unreasonable expectations emerged. Reed says some wanted
the trail from the outset to be “a thousand percent safe.” To get
66 CAPE COD MAGAZINE OCTOBER 2014 www.capecodmagazine.com

the trail built, planners had to accept “good” because they didn’t
have funding for “perfect.”
The trail budget couldn’t cover two important bridges needed
in Harwich and Orleans to carry cyclists over Route 6. Without
the Orleans bridge, cyclists would use surface streets for two
miles before rejoining the trail. Engineers had tunneled the trail
under a Brewster road but couldn’t in Orleans because the water
table was too high. Without the Harwich bridge, cyclists would
use the Route 124 shoulder, evade vehicles at the highway interchange,
then pick up the trail on the other side.
Planners had to opt for a slightly coarse asphalt surface because
there wasn’t enough funding to put down a preferred type
of fine surface. Over time, water seeped through, causing frost
heaves, and roots pushed upward, creating miniature mountain
ranges. Cycling on the trail became a teeth-jarring, tire-flattening
affair. “It was an incomplete solution,” Reed says. But it got
the path built.
An Orleans resident complained trail planners were discriminating
against horses. To accommodate equestrian use of the
trail, engineers had to lop the “peak” off the hump-shaped rail
bed and widen it from 8 to 12 feet. This permitted a horse path
to be added alongside part of the paved bike trail.
Trail planners had to figure out how to get ambulances and law
enforcement onto the trail in emergencies while keeping other
motorized vehicles off. The solution was a creative marriage of
posts and boulders at the trail’s entrances. Removable metal posts
were installed at the center of trail access points. Each post has a
removable pin at its base that official personnel can unlock and
remove to permit emergency vehicles onto the trail.
And the planners had to figure out how to get bicyclists onto
the new path. A critical strategy would be connecting it with a
system of “feeder” trails. Orleans upgraded its downtown sidewalks
to draw cyclists toward it. Bike paths in Brewster’s Nickerson
State Park and in the Cape Cod National Seashore would
become vital feeder links.
Throughout planning efforts, a question dogged the planners:
Would anyone use the Cape Cod Rail Trail
The trail was built and cyclists came, from kids on bikes with
training wheels to elite athletes on whisper-fast bikes. Others
came, too – runners, inline skaters, power-walkers, skateboarders,
parents pushing strollers, birdwatchers, charity events, and
commuters heading to jobs. Trail parking lots filled, bike businesses
opened, and vendors sold hot dogs to hungry trail users.
In 2013, 164,481 people used the Cape Cod Rail Trail, according
to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation
which manages the trail.
The trail sprouted from 16 to 22 miles in 1995 via an extension
from the Eastham trailhead to Lecount Hollow Road in Wellfleet.
In 2001, 21 years after the trail’s launch, a bridge was finally
built over Route 6 in Harwich, eliminating the risky Route 124
dash and correcting one of the early design compromises. The
Route 6 bridge in Orleans was finished in 2003 and a new threequarter-mile
stretch of bike path was added. Repairs began on
the bumpy trail surface in 2001.
The Old Colony Rail Trail opened in 2005, linking the Cape
Cod Rail Trail to Chatham. To keep cyclists moving safely where
the two trails intersect in Harwich, designers borrowed a feature
from Massachusetts roads: They built a bicycle rotary that allows
riders to merge smoothly.
The abandoned railroad, a remnant of a previous era, has
evolved into a valued regional treasure. Trail users pass cranberry
bogs, kettle ponds and tidal marshes just as rail passengers
did a century earlier. Cyclists can peddle through the shade of
Cape woods, finding relief from mid-summer sun. Runners can
exercise on terrain that’s largely flat, where birdsong is abundant
and vehicle exhaust is not. The success of the trail has inspired
efforts to extend it the entire length of Cape Cod—westward toward
the Cape Cod Canal and from Wellfleet to Provincetown.
Like the railroad before it, the trail has had a major impact on the
communities it crosses. The nonprofit group Rails-to-Trails Conservancy
reports trails like the Cape Cod Rail Trail are economic
engines that increase tourism and boost property values.
Though trail abutters were initially skittish, their proximity is
now considered an advantage. Real estate ads announce properties
are “near the rail trail!” as an inducement to potential buyers.
The once-feared trail is now a revered human-powered transportation
corridor.
Most will never know how much cajoling, negotiating and
persistence it took to launch the Cape Cod Rail Trail. It’s visionary,
Wally Ruckert, has passed away, but Reed savors how he,
Ruckert, Wylie and others overcame obstacles and eroded resistance
to create a Cape Cod gem.
“The day it was opened was a big day,” said Bliss, the former
state forest and parks director. “It’s been a great source of enjoyment
ever since.”
Dukakis is glad he propelled the project forward. “I’ve biked it
many times,” says the former governor. “I love that trail.”
www.capecodmagazine.com OCTOBER 2014 CAPE COD MAGAZINE 67

MARY CHAFFEE has been a
writer for 30 years. She’s written
extensively about the health system
and is co-editor of an awardwinning
book on health policy.
Her recent stories examine a toxic
waste dump’s rebirth as a wildlife
refuge and recycled wedding
dresses. A retired Navy Captain
with a PhD in nursing, she was
awarded an honorary doctorate
by UMass Amherst. For this issue,
she writes about the Cape Cod
Rail Trail history, which begins on
page 62. she and her family live in
Brewster, not far from the rail trail.