Valley News – VTrans floats idea of Route 5 bike path from Massachusetts to Quebec

FAIRLEE — City leaders are giving feedback to the Vermont Agency of Transportation and regional planning commissions on a potential bike corridor running the 200-mile length of state Route 5.

Considerations for the corridor, which would connect Massachusetts to Quebec, are still in the early stages. A survey gauging interest sent by the agency, known as VTrans, to city officials will be sent back to the Legislature when it is back in session in January.

The cost of the project — and where the money might come from — is still unclear, according to Matthew Arancio, a planning coordinator with VTrans who is leading the call for feedback on the potential project.

Rita Seto, chief of transportation planning at the nonprofit Two-Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission, emphasized that the project is still in the early stages of planning.

If it was to be realized, it might not be as one would expect, he said.

“Route 5 is complicated geographically, and in terms of regulation, the route stretches through a number of municipalities,” said Seto.

This means complexity for planners.

“Obviously the creation of a completely separate, self-contained bike lane would be optimal,” Seto said. “But I don’t think, in terms of cost and engineering, it would be feasible.”

She anticipated that the corridor will include both painted on-road trails and off-road trails that run parallel to Route 5. “A lot of these construction projects take a long time,” Seto said. “Even building something that’s only one kilometer takes a lot of time.”

But if it goes down the pipeline, the Fairlee Selectboard is in favor of the project, Vice Chairman Peter Berger said. In the city that sits just off Route 5, “the coexistence of car and bike travel is important,” Berger said.

In 2022, Fairlee received more than $100,000 from the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development to build sidewalks and crosswalks on its main street, part of a larger city plan to increase traffic ease pedestrian in Fairlee.

Berger sees the possible path as working in concert with that project, he said.

“There’s really a piece of marketing that people don’t know about,” he said. “This would be in part to make access to shopping centers for people.”

Commuters in particular, who travel between cities on Route 5 to travel “purpose” such as work and shopping, could be served by a bicycle corridor. But Berger said he knows of more recreational bike users than commuters, as people flock to the city on warmer days to ride bikes around Lake Morey and Lake Fairlee.

He is concerned, however, about the complications of a bike path of that scale, which would be the longest in Vermont.

“The state must be reasonable in its initiatives,” Berger said.

The Thetford Selectboard is also in “full support” of the project, Chairwoman Sharon Harkay wrote in an email to the Valley News. “We see it as a chance for a safer bike that would hopefully lead to more people getting out on their bikes to do healthy exercise, travel to different places of interest, shop, travel and connect to other tracks of bicycle.”

The access the corridor would give to other bike trails in Vermont and New Hampshire is part of the excitement, said Tom Sexton, director of the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a national nonprofit organization.

The Route 5 corridor could easily connect to the Northern Rail Trail, which runs from Concord to Lebanon, Sexton said in a telephone interview from Camp Hill, Pa.

From there, once the trail lands riders in Wells River, Vt., they can continue on the Cross Vermont Trail – which follows the Winooski and Wells River valleys – or go to Woodsville, NH and take the Ammonoosuc Rail Trail, which goes north. in Littleton, NH

If it were to come to fruition, the trail would be “a win for rural cycling, pedestrians and economic opportunity,” Sexton said.

In New Hampshire, across the Connecticut River from Fairlee, Orford Selectboard Chairman John Adams said VTrans had sent him information about the potential corridor.

Just “as the railroad did,” this project passed through Orford, Adams lamented.

Still, recreational cycling, and events like the annual Prouty Charity Bike Ride hosted by the Friends of Dartmouth Cancer Center, which sees cyclists cross the Samuel Morey Memorial Bridge from Fairlee to NH Route 10 in Orford, has said Adams.

But “there’s no Orford bike club, so to speak, defending it,” he said.

Arancio, the official of VTrans, emphasized that the “unprecedented” scale of the project is why it is all the more important to “assess the buy-in of the stakeholders”, he said.

He compared the corridor to the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail, or LVRT, which runs from St. Johnsbury, Vt. to Swanton, Vt., which covers less than half the length of the proposed Route 5 corridor. The creation of the LVRT took more than three decades of design and construction, just last year.

The $31 million road was built with state and federal funding.

With the potential Route 5 project, “we’re talking about a large, complex corridor with many different players,” Arancio said.

“This is not even taking into consideration additional infrastructure projects that could come.”

For now, the agency’s plans remain at “step zero,” Arancio said.

Frances Mize is a member of the American corps. He can be reached at fmize@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.