The idea of connecting Williamstown and North Adams through a bike path has been bandied about Berkshire County for some time. The two major communities of Northern Berkshire County sit just five miles apart along Route 2. Eric Kerns is a founding partner of Tourists, a luxury hotel located between the two communities. In the packed city council chambers at city hall Friday morning, he read a past endorsement for the project.
“A little attention to this now and a small expenditure of money would prove good investments, and eventually would have much to do with drawing visitors and investors to this delightful section," read Kerns. "A good starter would be to connect Williamstown and North Adams with a bicycle path. It could be done at comparatively small expense.”
That argument was published by the North Adams Transcript in its afternoon edition on July 18th, 1896.
Now, almost 130 years later, that dream is a step closer to reality.
The funding announced Friday will add a 9.3-mile connector to the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail to finally link the communities of Williamstown, Adams, and North Adams to the existent path that runs between Adams and Pittsfield. The trail first opened on a former train line in 2001, and has since been expanded to an over 14-mile corridor.
“It's about preservation and open space and waterways, making sure that for succeeding generations they get a chance to use them, just as we have with improvements on the side of public investment,” said Neal, who secured the earmark through the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity or RAISE program. “The significance of it is, that reminding people of the sheer beauty, the nature of preservation, also combined with economic investment, because you want people to come and see it, to participate, and, by the way, to drop a few bucks while they're there. That helps the local economy as well.”
The project is a public-private partnership, with entities including art museum MASS MoCA and the aforementioned Tourists working alongside regional and state agencies like the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission for years on the long-awaited expansion.
The BRPC is charged with overseeing the project and manage the grant money over the next four years.
“This section is particularly hard because there are wetlands, there’s not an easy way to get through here," said Executive Director Thomas Matusko. "And I have to say that when I first heard some of the vision coming out of the Tourists, I was a little skeptical about what might happen. They had this grand, bridge and tunnel underneath things- But it really is, it really has captured people's imagination. And I think without their leadership on it, it would have not gone as far as it did.”
Local leaders hailed the funding announcement.
“We have already seen the tremendous benefit in Williamstown from our short, little, about three-mile, essentially, as you can see, path- It doesn't really go anywhere yet, but the benefits have been tremendous," said Williamstown Community Development Director Andrew Groff. "It is highly used and loved by our local community, and we just cannot wait to see the additional benefit to our residents, students at Williams, tourists, and this the whole region by having us connected to North Adams and Adams and really integrating our communities together. I can't wait to see the future.”
“We need to work together going forward," said John Duval chairs the Adams town select board. "We can't just be Adams doing our thing, North Adams doing their thing. We have to work together to have these successful big ideas to happen. And I've been on the board of selectmen for 13 years now, and the projects I am seeing happening today were dreams of people back 20, 30, and even 50 years ago, and people say that nothing happens with government. This just goes to show that it takes time to make these big projects happen. It takes a lot of people, a lot of volunteers and a lot of discussions. However, we do get things done.”
The ultimate vision for the Ashuwillticook Rail Trail remains a 75-mile path that runs from the very top to bottom of Massachusetts, connecting the neighboring states of Vermont and Connecticut through the Berkshires.
