5/31/2016
Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed | Merrimack Valley | eagletribune.com
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Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed Group hikes 1.5mile route By Keith Eddings keddings@eagletribune. com May 26, 2016
Ryan Hutton RYAN HUTTON/Staff photoLawrence city officials and members of the public walk the abandoned rail lines behind the Manchester Street Park. The city is seeking a grant for a rail trail.
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5/31/2016
Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed | Merrimack Valley | eagletribune.com
LAWRENCE Along rusted rails, across patches of mud, over piles of debris, under the Lowell Street bridge and through a small swarm of mosquitoes, a group of about 30 hiked an abandoned railbed Wednesday from the Methuen line to the Merrimack River to brainstorm ideas with planners about how the grungy, overgrown strip can be remade into something spectacular. The group of adults and children stopped to consider that question four times over the 1.5mile, twohour trek, where the trail passed by Burgoin Park, Family Day Charter School, the intersection of Broadway and Essex streets, and ended at the river. At each stop, Abel Vargas, the city's economic development director, and Brad Buschur, project director for Groundwork Lawrence, posed questions about what else beside a trail for hikers and bikers might be built at the spot, then handed out Postit stickers so the hikers could paste their thoughts onto maps Buschur held up at each of the sites. “Should we keep the track?” Buschur asked at the section of the railbed beside the charter school. “Would it be a cool relic to keep of the past, or do we just rip it all out and make a path for long boarders?” Onto the map, the hikers posted their thoughts: an easy interface with the school, landscaping, more trees. The Boston & Maine Railroad carried passengers and freight on a spur from Lawrence to Manchester, N.H., from 1848 to 1993. Methuen and Salem, N.H., and other communities further north have redeveloped their sections of the railbed into a trail for bikers and hikers, although in most of them the project remains a work in progress. Methuen received a $1.7 million grant from the state’s Gateway Cities Parks Program last month to help finish the remake of its section of the trail, including paving over the crushed asphalt that was laid down when the rails and ties were removed. “It was brutal,” said Tim Vermette, who led the volunteer crews that did most of the construction after the rails and ties were removed, and now does most of the maintenance. Pointing to the ugly rows of invasive phragmites as high as 7 feet, he added “It was crap like this, even taller” that helped slow the work. Vermette said the economic challenge of converting the railbed to a trail may be greater for Lawrence because the overheated Chinese economy that was buying up scrap steel around the world has slowed since Methuen sold its rails. In Lawrence, the project already has made a few significant strides since Abel pushed Mayor Daniel Rivera to propose it last year. http://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/ideasemergeforreclaiminglawrencerailbed/article_c6d2c2838d025fbb857a47ec154a988a.html
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5/31/2016
Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed | Merrimack Valley | eagletribune.com
The state has given the city a 99yearlease for the railbed and the federal Environmental Protection Agency provided $200,000 to study how the corridor of abandoned properties and creaky industrial buildings can be cleaned up and redeveloped. The hike paused a third time where the railbed swipes the intersection of Broadway and Essex. Vargas offered a hint of what he'd like to see in the open spaces along the trail at that point: He would rename it Downtown Crossing, the same name given to a onceshabby Boston neighborhood that now hums with commerce and condominiums. The hikers pondered that for a moment, then scribbled their own thoughts on the Postits and stuck them on the map of the neighborhood that Buschur held up: Preserve a large brick building on Broadway a few hundred feet from the trail. Create a wetland out of a muddy low point of the trail that runs under Lowell Street. Install bike racks. Build a parking lot. It's here, in the few downtown blocks of the railbed south of Lowell Street to the river, where the bumpy ride over the tracks across Broadway and Essex streets still reminds the city of the center of manufacturing it was for two centuries. Otherwise, as the railbed ran north out of downtown in the quarter century since the last train pulled away, it disappeared behind chainlink fences and ragged rows of aggressive weeds, where it was overtaken by drug users, vandals, midnight dumpers and graffiti artists. Driving them out and claiming the railbed for hikers and bikers would be a key benefit of the project, said Jeovanny Rodriguez, a city councilor who joined the hike. He said he also joined a cleanup along the rail bed on Earth Day last month, when he said volunteers picked up enough trash to fill 55 bags. “When we build something, people will show up,” Rodriguez said. “Anything illegal going on, they'll go away.” The hikers reached the Merrimack River just before dusk, spooking a great blue heron that someone speculated was looking for fish to bring back to its nest at a colony of the birds a few miles away in Andover. Vargas handed out more Postits. The hikers scribbled their thoughts and stuck them to the last of the maps: Build a platform over the river, cut back the brush to improve the view. Vargas had a more ambitious idea: “In a dream world, this trail would go over the bridge,” he said, pointing to the long row of wooden rail ties that still cross the river beside the Broadway bridge to the former terminal where the Lawrence to Merrimack line once ended.
http://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/ideasemergeforreclaiminglawrencerailbed/article_c6d2c2838d025fbb857a47ec154a988a.html
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5/31/2016
Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed | Merrimack Valley | eagletribune.com
“Imagine going over the bridge with these beautiful views, without any interruption of vehicles," he said. "But we realize it's a highcost item.” 1 comment Sign in
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Wayne Noyes from Facebook
5 days ago
As a path out of Haverhill. Like
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Ideas emerge for reclaiming Lawrence railbed | Merrimack Valley | eagletribune.com
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