Tensions escalate over Northern Scenic Greenway bikepath project

The design stage for the Northern Scenic Greenway, a proposed 9.8-mile long shared-use trail that will run through Westport, Dartmouth and New Bedford, is set to begin soon, as the details for a contract with a consultant are being finalized.

The Northern Scenic Greenway is part of the planned South Coast Bikeway that will extend from Providence to Cape Cod once complete.

While it has been confirmed that the Dartmouth portion of the trail will be built along Old Fall River Road, there are no existing plans regarding design or construction yet, said Sandra Medeiros, the president of the South Coast Bikeway Alliance and a Dartmouth Pathways Committee member.

Constructing Dartmouth’s portion of the Northern Scenic Greenway has recently been met with opposition from residents of Old Fall River Road, who expressed their grievances with the project at a Dartmouth Pathways Committee meeting on Thursday, June 18.

Old Fall River Road residents packed into Town Hall Room 315 for the meeting, overflowing into the hallway due to a lack of both sitting and standing room. Early on, someone called the police after shouting erupted between a resident and Committee Chair William Trimble.

Resident Ed Pacheco, who doesn’t live on Old Fall River Road, said that homeowners have been “feeling left in the dark,” taking note of the tension and emotions felt in the room.

Among the concerns residents raised included how much land would be taken from their front yards for the path, whether historical features would be demolished and a lack of community input, communication and transparency.

One resident at the committee meeting noted that he’s had cars crash into a stonewall at the front of his property, and said that if the stonewall is demolished for the project, the cars may instead crash into his home.

In Phase I of the project,  the Southeastern Regional Planning & Economic Development District, a regional planning agency, took measurements of Old Fall River Road to determine whether there would be enough room to put a path within the public right-of-way.

A public right-of-way refers to a publicly owned area reserved for transportation purposes, which includes bike paths. A public right-of-way typically extends several feet past the shoulders on either side of the road.

“There’s every effort being made to produce a pathway within the right-of-way,” Medeiros said.

Old Fall River Road was chosen for the project after SRPEDD conducted feasibility studies in 2018 and the early 2020s, which included three alternative route options. 

Other route options considered were a southern route, a Route 6 route and a rail corridor route.These roads weren’t chosen for reasons like environmental coordination challenges, safety concerns, the presence of wetlands and limited right-of-way use, according to a hand-out from the South Coast Bikeway Alliance.

Medeiros said that there has been some misinformation on social media regarding project design, noting that the only part of the project confirmed so far has been that the route will go along Old Fall River Road.

She noted that while there are preliminary concept drawings of ways the bike path could be designed, they were created to “illustrate that the road had enough width to put a path within that right-of-way.”

The study and a preliminary design must be completed by June 2027, and is funded through a MassTrails grant.

Medeiros urged residents to visit the South Coast Bikeway Alliance’s website and Facebook page for more information on the project.

Once a contract is signed, the consultant company will know that public outreach is a “huge component of the project,” Medeiros said. A company has not been hired yet.

“There will be meetings in each of the three communities — multiple meetings — and multiple opportunities for people to weigh in in the initial stages,” she said.

Once the consultant gets results from analyzing the route, they will present proposed designs based on their findings. There will be additional opportunities for people to weigh in, according to Medeiros.

“The public will have opportunity to weigh in on the design to ask questions,” she said. “There’s a whole process coming forward with this preliminary design and engineering project.”

She noted that the path may end up looking different on different parts of the road, depending on “special circumstances,” such as S-turns or historical features like stonewalls.

“We know that there are some constraints, we know that there are wetlands, we know that there are historic walls, we know that there are trees,” Medeiros said. “That will all be taken into consideration with the design that’s proposed.”