To the editor:
It was a cold afternoon in December of 2007 when I first came upon Great Barrington while vacationing in the area from my home in Ireland. With a snowstorm blowing in during a lunch detour, I was forced to hunker down at a local motel for the night. The next morning, a ramble though the snow led me up a hill and into the clearing of Lake Mansfield. With snowflakes falling around me and snow piled high, I followed a pair of tracks around the tree-rimmed lake, neighbors spotted in the distance clearing a pathway off for ice skating, a father and son gliding their sled across the quiet road. Standing there in the stillness of the lake, I came to the realization that I had serendipitously stumbled upon the place which I had been yearning for to call home after twelve long years of living abroad — now, nearly nine years later, it is just that.
I share this story of my introduction to Lake Mansfield in the hopes that the Great Barrington Select Board will support the recommendations of the Lake Mansfield Comprehensive Improvement Plan to convert Lake Mansfield Road from two way to one-way, allowing for a designated safe path for pedestrians along the lake edge. With my three children and I all being active users of the area for fishing, biking, swimming and walking, the stress of negotiating a crumbling roadway while simultaneously dodging traffic whizzing by us from both directions makes visiting the area almost too anxiety-ridden to bear. I cannot even imagine how the elderly and those with physical challenges must feel.
I urge the Selectboard and members of the community to see the bigger picture of how creating a designated pedestrian pathway along the lake’s edge would benefit the town for years to come, while at the same time protecting the delicate and vital ecosystem that it hosts. Serving as a safe and peaceful respite from the busyness of day-to-day life, the creation of a new path which separates driver from non-driver would also promote fitness, socialization, reflection, and, as in my case, encourage new families to move to the area to enjoy the wonderful natural resource that is Lake Mansfield.
Leigh Davis
Great Barrington
