Originally Posted by
bike_tom
Happy Spring everyone. It's nice to see those of us who took a winter break from cycling back on the road. This week I decided to take a break from my usual rides to the west and ride east (from Arlington) via the Alewife Linear Park and the Somerville Community Path, to check out the progress on the Green Line Extension (GLX). As many of you know, the Path eastern terminus is currently at Lowell St Somerville. As part of the GLX, the Path is going to be extended all the way to the Charles River. The photo below was taken at the current end point at Lowell St.
The foreground is the end of the pavement at the existing turnaround. The fresh concrete a few hundred feet back is presumably the extension of the Path. Hopefully by the end of the year they will meet up.
I am looking forward to being able to ride all the way to the Charles / Lechmere area on a dedicated path. My understanding is that there are also (eventually) improvements coming for getting from Alewife to the Charles via the Fresh Pond area. That would make a nice off-street urban loop.
On the way back I took a short side trip to Belmont on the Fitchburg Cutoff. I understand that someday the Belmont Community Path will connect that to the rest of the Mass Central Rail Trail, but who knows when that will be...
I live fairly close to the future Gilman Square station and from the Walnut Street bridge I am not entirely clear on what they are currently doing with the path. It seems like there may be a ramp in progress to take bikes up to street level from the tracks (there is a ~10-15 foot wide flat section next to the tracks) but I'm not sure if that is going to be used for the bike path or if it's pedestrian access for the station. At any rate it looks further behind than the station platform, which is almost fully constructed. The Ball Square platform is almost done too. The station itself is supposed to open this fall so I suppose we will get answers sooner rather than later.