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May 2, 2012: Comments needed! It's that time of year again. The MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) is preparing their 2013-16 Transportation Improvement Program (TIP) and the ARRT project is at risk of being pushed back. Commenting is easy, with an online form on the MPO website. A link to the form is here. Select the button labeled "Draft FFYs 2013-16 Transportation Improvement Program", and then type your message in the comment box. There is room for 4-5 sentences and should mention that you are in support of ARRT Acton-Maynard construction funding being restored to the 2016 TIP. The comment period runs until May 30th. 
January, 2012: The Assabet River Wildlife Refuge kicked off a transportation study at a workshop at the visitors center in November. Being considered is which of the 3 bicycling allowed refuge roads might be re-paved. Also, possible bike access across the 'south section', connecting to the Mass Central Rail Trail ROW. A follow-up meeting will be held on February 7, 2012. More details on the calendar page.
November 9, 2011: The 25% ARRT design plans for Acton-Maynard were delivered to the MassDOT this morning by AECOM, the engineering firm that has the engineering contract. All of the overview sheets are posted on this web site. This comes exactly a year after the design funds were restored in 2010 and AECOM resumed working on the project. June 8, 2011: Comments needed! The MPO (Metropolitan Planning Organization) is requesting public comments on the 2011-2035 Long Range Transportation plan "Paths to a Sustainable Region" for road, bridge and bike trail projects in greater Boston. The deadline is 5:00 PM Tuesday, June 21st and is easy, with an online form on the MPO website. A link to the form is here. Then put your message in the comment box. There is room for 4-5 sentences and should mention that you are in support of ARRT Acton-Maynard-Stow construction funding. If you want to read the 1-page summary of the long range plan, it can be found here. 
May 5, 2011: A joint meeting of the ARRT, Mass Central and Bruce Freeman rail trail organizations was held at the Assabet River Wildlife Refuge Visitors center.
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The next ARRT meeting will be Thursday May 24, 2012 at the Maynard Library.
Monthly ARRT meetings are open to the public. Anyone interested in our activities are invited to attend. Meetings finish before 9:00 PM. The complete ARRT calendar is here. 
The ARRT can now accept donations and membership dues online. We are using the GuideStar-Network for Good system. More details and the payment link are here.
December 8, 2010: The Town of Acton closed on the purchase of the 19 acre Caouette Farm in South Acton. With this purchase using Community Preservation Act money, the town directed AECOM engineers to plan a rerouting of the trail onto the farm property. The end result will be that the planned bike bridge over the MBTA RR tracks can be eliminated and the crossing of Maple Street shifted to a better location. November 8, 2010: The Stow Special Town meeting tonight voted unanimously to fund the Town's 20% share of the cost to design the "Track Road" portion of the trail, using Community Preservation Act monies. October 16, 2010: The state has released the money to finish designing the Acton & Maynard section of the trail. The Concord engineering firm AECOM (formerly EarthTech) resumed work last week and is tasked with bringing the design from 25% in 2008, all the way to 100% in 2011. They got off to a fast start, with lots of new survey markers in Maynard. Trail construction is still scheduled to start in 2014 at the earliest. 
June 7, 2010: The Acton Selectmen endorsed the MBTA's new dual-platform redesign for the South Acton train station. Included in the design is a proposed 51 space parking lot on the south side of the station. This lot is not approved or funded yet. If built, it would meet the MassHighway's requirement that the ARRT end at a significant destination and might eliminate the need for a separate ARRT bridge across the RR tracks to the main parking lot. The plans can be seen here.
May 25, 2010:The Route-62 bridge replacement in Hudson is done, with the new ARRT bike lane now open. It closes what was a 100 yard gap in the trail since the Hudson section opened in 2005. Included is a new Cross Alert system at the Whispering Pine crosswalk. This is the 2nd of these high-tech systems to be installed on the ARRT in Hudson.
May 1, 2010: The bi-annual state rail trail count was May 1st this year. As always, the ARRT trail count in Hudson was part of it and the numbers were the best we've recorded in the 4 years since we started. We had 9 volunteers covering 9 hours. The total count was 841, an average of 90.4 people per hour. Our old record of 100 in one hour was broken 3 times, with a new record of 151/hour set at 11:00 AM. Some selected data:
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