GREAT BARRINGTON — The town of Great Barrington has received a six-figure grant from the state for the construction of a shared-use recreational path along Stockbridge Road — a paved trail that will close a gap in the Fountain Pond/Three Mile Hill hiking loop and make pedestrian access to a pair of organizations along Route 7 much safer.
The grant of nearly $140,000 comes from MassDOT’s Shared Winter Streets and Spaces Program. Dubbed the Old Route 7 Greenway, the planned off-road paved path will connect the area near the Jenifer House Commons with the Community Health Programs (CHP)Â campus, about a half-mile to the north on Route 7/Stockbridge Road.
Once complete, pedestrians, cyclists, and others will be able to proceed safely between Berkshire South Regional Community Center and CHP, two locations where there are trailheads for the Fountain Pond/Three Mile Hill trail system. Until now, the trip required a walk along busy Stockbridge Road in the eastern breakdown lane for anyone wishing to complete the loop. Town officials were concerned for their safety.
“Walking and biking areas do so much to improve our quality of life, so this is great news for the Stockbridge Road residents, businesses, and visitors,” Chris Rembold, assistant town manager and director of planning and community development, said in a statement. “Walking along the road there has been a scary prospect on that busy highway.”
Rembold said the path will run along the roadbed of the Old Route 7 corridor, which has been owned by the town since it was abandoned by the state in the 1950s in favor of the current modern highway slightly to the west. The project will cost a total of $517,000, with a combination of state funds and a grant from the Community Preservation Committee (CPC). The project received a grant of $25,000 from the CPC and appropriation of $380,000 from taxpayers at town meeting.
See map below of the trail system in the northern portion of Great Barrington, with the route of the planned Old Route 7 Greenway in broken yellow:
The Great Barrington grant was part of a $2.8 million state award from the Shared Winter Streets and Spaces initiative. The awards made this week will provide funding to 17 municipalities and two public transit authorities for a total of 19 projects. In its news release announcing the grants, MassDOT emphasized that 58 percent of the awarded municipalities are designated Environmental Justice communities and 79 percent are considered high-risk for COVID infections. Fully 53 percent of this week’s winners have never received a Shared Streets and Spaces award before.
Since the program launched in June 2020, the state has awarded $21.1 million in municipal Shared Streets projects. The program provides grants as small as $5,000 and as large as $500,000 for municipalities to quickly launch changes for safer walking, biking, public transit, recreation, commerce, and civic activities.
MassDOT calls the initiative a “Quick-Launch/Quick-Build Municipal Funding Program.” Accordingly, the trail is expected to be complete by the end of June, Rembold said.
