Rail Trails & Etiquette Signs
I have been a staff member of MassBike for the last two years, but I also sit on the Manhan Rail Trail Committee in Easthampton. At the beginning of the year we were getting complaints about "fat-tire e-bikes” on the rail trail. It became apparent that we are having new users on the rail trail that weren’t aware of trail etiquette. At that time we had trail etiquette written on our maps and posted in 14 pt font on a piece of paper at the trail kiosks. But neither of these are highly visible for riders traveling at speed. In my position at MassBike I was able to reach out to other bike/ped groups and find what resources are available, several groups had made great progress in this area and I’ve gotten permission with them to share their work! The Manhan Rail Trail took some of these examples and we created our own sign to be printed and posted this year. As far as MassBike, I’ve compiled the best practices for signage and created the Trail Etiquette Toolkit which we should have available on our website by the annual meeting next month!
In my role as Regional Advocacy Specialist I was added to several more committees throughout the state. This year I was added as a voting member to the Old Colony Joint Transportation Committee and ongoing participation in two meetings for the Boston MPO (Boston Regional Active Transportation Steering Committee & Community Advisory Council), as well as my third year as a voting member for the Pioneer Valley Planning Committee JTC. In this positions, I get to see a rare birds eye view of the process of infrastructure getting built and how MassDOT is advancing cycling networks in their design guidelines and priority trail network. There are lots of projects in the pipeline that I’m extremely excited about the ribbon cutting and impact they will have on local networks. Including one nearby to me that advocates and neighborhoods have been asking for for decades:
And the trail I was most looking forward to that opened last year was the Clipper Ship connector in Medford.
https://mass.streetsblog.org/2025/08/07/eyes-on-the-street-medfords-new-clippership-connector
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