To the editor:
An open letter to Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer: As someone who has walked Marblehead’s rail trail almost daily for 25 years, particularly the Wyman Woods area including the two bridges under recent discussion, I would like to weigh in on the $1.4 million improvement plan.
It was officially stated that the top priorities in trail planning are “accessibility, safety and aesthetic.” Yet for anyone who’s used the trails, the bridges are not the main obstacle for any of those priorities. The bridges are fully accessible and safe for all but a small number of wheeled vehicles that can’t fit between the bollards. Go ahead and remove bollards and smooth out the lip on the bridge closest to Lafayette Street. But please use the bulk of this money to make THE TRAIL itself more accessible and safe. (The aesthetics take care of themselves… just stop, look, listen and smell. Notice the bald eagle hanging around lately.) Once someone crosses the bridges they may be confronted with impassable puddles. In winter these become treacherous ice causing many falls, as does the metal bridge near the Tower School.Throughout the town, these and the trail’s deep ruts and jagged rocks (not to mention private pumps draining onto the trail) are the real problems.
Please listen to the people who use the trail regularly and reconsider how best to spend the $1.4 million on genuinely improving the trail, a wonderful local resource, throughout the town.
Kate Borten
Martin Terrace
