ARRT Planning ARRT Amenities Donation Program
The Marlborough Section of the Assabet River Rail Trail (ARRT) officially opened last fall. Since then and even before, it has been very busy and a widely used trail. We want to recognize the hard work of The Assabet River Rail Trail Inc. (ARRT, Inc.) organization, the City of Marlborough, The Towns of Hudson, Stow, Maynard, and Acton, and others for all their hard work in bringing the trail to fruition.
The poster is the product of a long and exciting planning discussion related to creating a vision for a GREAT Assabet River Rail Trail! For this project, we were fortunate to have support from the Digital Federal Credit Union, the Sudbury Foundation and other private donors.
The purpose of this project initially included the following:
Creation of a long term sustainability plan for the Rail Trail including landscaping, addition of trail amenities such as park benches, trash cans
Integration of the Marlborough section of the Trail into community development land use planning,
Increase in Trail usage and enjoyment, and
Exploration of ways to encourage economic development in downtown Marlborough and other areas in the general vicinity of the Trail
Marlborough Community Development Corporation (MCDC) and its consultant BSC Terrasphere worked hard over the last 5 months incorporating input from over 200 people.
We pulled together a steering committee to provide guidance to our efforts.
We facilitated a series of focus groups to gather some initial input and thoughts on the trail with abutters,
city officials,
business and institutions,
users,
youth, and
seniors.
We collected input from various individuals on a one on one basis regarding proposed new developments
Over fifty people returned or completed our survey either on-line or on paper.
BSC researched and collected information on geography, terrain, trails, businesses, etc.
In addition we hosted 2 in-depth meetings that we referred to as Charettes. A Charette is a term that refers to a facilitated conversation where stakeholders come together and provide input to professionals that incorporate their comments into working designs, drawings or renderings that serve as a blueprint for development. We really asked folks to think big and be creative.
All this information was compiled into the Poster— “blueprint for action”. We plan to present this blueprint to select community and business leaders who will be asked to help provide resources to implement the plan.
Simply put the next steps are to get to work. Obviously, some parts of the plan can be tackled easier and quicker than others. Some parts may take years to happen and some plans may change as we refine them moving forward. We plan to work with all of you and others to gather the resources and continue the planning.
Our Tree Committee is already working to place more trees and landscaping along the trail. The Marlborough Litter League may be hosting a cleanup this year. Discussions have begun to bring a caboose to the Marlborough section of the trail. The City is actively planning on placing benches along the trail. We hope to begin all of this as soon as possible.
If you are interested in helping MCDC promote and implement the plan or have other comments on the poster or the process, please do not hesitate to contact me at 508.408.4118 or trish@marlboroughcdc.org. Again thank you for your contribution to this very important effort and we look forward to working with you again in the future.