Organizers of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail can’t wait to get started on the border-to-border, four-season recreation path they have been waiting to build for a decade.
“We might be able to get the first bridge in this fall,” Laird MacDowell of Jeffersonville, chairman of the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail Committee. He was referring to a bridge that will connect the old railway bed with a bike path in St. Johnsbury.
On Thursday, the District 7 Environmental Commission issued an Act 250 land use permit for phase 1 of the 93-mile trail to be built on the bed of the former St. Johnsbury and Lamoille railroad. Phase 1 covers 44 miles of trail in three distinct sections: St. Johnsbury to Danville, Morrisville to Cambridge and Sheldon to Swanton.
The commission also reviewed the master plan for all 93 miles, and ruled that phases 2 and 3 meet some environmental criteria in Act 250. Both later phases will require further review on other criteria including aesthetics , the commission ruled.
“This is excellent new for VAST and the recreational community,” Alexis Nelson said Friday. She is executive director of the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, which leases the old rail bed from the state. “We hope to break ground in Morrisville in the spring.”
Construction includes replacing damaged or washed-out bridges and culverts, installing drainage, clearing brush and putting on a new gravel surface.
Snowmobiles already use much of the route in winter but the rail bed is too rough and brush-covered in most places for use in summer by bicyclists, walkers and horseback riders. VAST leased the trail from the state in 2003 and has been seeking to make improvements for year-round use ever since.
Construction was delayed during lease negotiations, design, environmental studies and a fight with several landowners, first over whether the project required an Act 250 permit and – after VAST lost that battle — over the permit itself.
“Yes, I’m happy, but I’m not happy it took so long,” MacDowell said last week. Like other supporters of the trail he was frustrated by the many delays.
