The Somerville Community Path was extended to downtown Boston in the summer of 2023, creating a much larger continuous bikeway accessible from the Minuteman.[4]
Map from 1946, where Boston & Maine Railroad (B&M) passes along the route of today's Minuteman Bikeway
The path comprising the current Minuteman Bikeway has a long history. The trail closely approximates the route that Paul Revere took on his famous ride in 1775, which heralded the beginning of the American Revolution.
Along the way to becoming a railroad, the path's right-of-way (ROW) was laid out east of Lexington in 1846 by the Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad and west of Lexington in 1873 by the Middlesex Central Railroad. Part of the original track can be seen in Arlington, near Uncle Sam Plaza in front of the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum.
Railbanking of the line was first proposed in 1974, three years before passenger rail service was discontinued, and a full seven years before rail service was discontinued altogether (in 1981). In 1991, the final plan for the conversion was approved, and construction started on the original section of the bikeway.[6] The Arlington–Lexington section of the path was dedicated in September 1992; the Lexington–Bedford segment was delayed by water main construction and opened in May 1993.[7][8] In 1998, the bikeway was extended a short distance from East Arlington to Alewife station in Cambridge.[9]
In 2002, it was repaved in Arlington and in 2004, the Bedford Depot Park Enhancement Project was completed at its western terminus.[6] In 2008, the bikeway was the fifth inductee into the national Rail-Trail Hall of Fame by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy.[10]
The property is currently owned by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority and leased to the municipalities through which it passes on an interim basis as the ROW is railbanked.[11][12] The MBTA at one point planned to use this ROW to extend the Red Line to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights.[13]
The crossing of the path through Arlington Center was rebuilt in 2017 to be less discontinuous.[14][15][16]
Uses
Area residents use the bikeway for a host of activities, including bicycling, walking, jogging, and inline skating. The main use of the path, however, is for casual biking.[6] In the winter there is often enough snow on the bikeway for cross-country skiing. However, it is now plowed from Alewife Station to Bedford.[17][18] No motorized vehicles are allowed except for powered wheelchairs and emergency vehicles.
In April 2014, state officials announced that the Somerville Community Path would be extended alongside the Green Line Extension, creating a continuous 4.5 mile route from the Minuteman Bikeway to Boston’s Charles River Bike Path.[20] Officials had contemplated abandoning the path portion of the GLX in order to save costs, but after hiring new management, a contractor agreed to the parallel path while still cutting costs.[citation needed] The extension was completed in the summer of 2023.[4]
^Some sources list it erroneously as 11 miles. The confusion arises because the mile marker at the beginning of the trail in Bedford is 1 instead of 0. Wikipedia editors have measured the distance as shown on maps and in Google Earth, and it appears to be 10 miles to within a few hundredths of a mile. For further verification, see: Project for Public SpacesArchived 2006-07-19 at the Wayback Machine or About the Lexington Branch
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