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Commonwealth Connections
Commonwealth Connections is a greenway and conservation initiative co-developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the National Park Service, and over fifty trail and land conservation agencies and non-profit organizations. Begun in 1999, the initiative was designed to create "a coordinated greenway and trail network that will help conserve important resources, provide recreation and alternative transportation opportunities close to where people live, and connect communities throughout Massachusetts."
The initiative is loosely based on the grassroots success of the Appalachian Trail and on Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace vision of an interconnected greenway linking metropolitan Boston parkland; it includes the development of new trails, maintenance and rehabilitation of existing trails, environmental and experiential education, land conservation, and support for research, stewardship, and regional conservation planning. Emphasis is on both local and multi-regional cooperative projects (rural, suburban, and urban), and includes hiking trails, universal access trails, bicycling and mountain biking trails, river corridors, as well as recreational trails used for motorized vehicles. The Massachusetts DCR contributes to the Commonwealth Connections program by enabling trails projects through providing town agencies and non-profit organizations with information, education, training, and matching grants.
Initial efforts (2003) of the Commonwealth Connections initiative produced a teleologic greenway proposal map, a seven part strategy for greenway development, and a series of recommendations based on region.
The seven strategies proposed are:
1. Protect and promote long-distance trail corridors as primary spines of the Massachusetts Greenway and Trail System. This strategy emphasizes increased protection and maintenance of the 600 miles (970 km) of existing long-distance trails in the state of Massachusetts which would serve as "spines" for further and more extensive greenway development. Trails include the Appalachian Trail, Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, Midstate Trail, Warner Trail, Bay Circuit, and Taconic Trails. The strategy proposes earmarking these trails for federal and state funding; working with government, non-profit, and private entities to protect trail corridors; increasing tax break incentives to landowners who allow trail easements through their property; and completing protection of 200 miles (320 km) of these trails by 2010.
2.Protect critical river corridors and their tributaries statewide. This strategy would build on the success of federal and state river protection programs to further conserve river corridors and habitat in Massachusetts. Specific strategies would include earmarking critical corridors and habitat for state and federal funding; enforcing river protection efforts via education and outreach; ensuring the creation and protection of public river access points and walkways; and facilitating the creation of zoning laws to protect river corridors and public access areas.
3.Strategically link important natural and human communities. The purpose of this strategy would be to strengthen the viability of existing recreational areas and habitats by extending them and linking them to each other and to inhabited areas, thereby reducing habitat fragmentation, increasing resource awareness through the proliferation of public contact points, and expanding the recreational value of previously isolated resource islands. Specifics here would include identifying potential links between existing resources and focusing funds on the creation of such links; using such links as a way of connecting resources to population centers; and linking ecologically important areas to greenways as a way of economically combining both ecologic and recreational conservation efforts.
4.Create a cross-state multi-use trail reaching from Boston to the Berkshires. This effort would address the lack of east-west greenway corridors in the state and the strategic difficulty of developing such greenways (most current greenways are north-south corridors). This strategy identifies abandoned railway beds as possible routes. Specific efforts here would include developing state-wide coalitions to address the creation of and east-west greenways. (The goal of securing these east-west corridor trail elements by 2003 was recently met by the development and extension of several rails-to-trails projects in the east, west, and central parts of the state).
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Commonwealth Connections
Commonwealth Connections is a greenway and conservation initiative co-developed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), the National Park Service, and over fifty trail and land conservation agencies and non-profit organizations. Begun in 1999, the initiative was designed to create "a coordinated greenway and trail network that will help conserve important resources, provide recreation and alternative transportation opportunities close to where people live, and connect communities throughout Massachusetts."
The initiative is loosely based on the grassroots success of the Appalachian Trail and on Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace vision of an interconnected greenway linking metropolitan Boston parkland; it includes the development of new trails, maintenance and rehabilitation of existing trails, environmental and experiential education, land conservation, and support for research, stewardship, and regional conservation planning. Emphasis is on both local and multi-regional cooperative projects (rural, suburban, and urban), and includes hiking trails, universal access trails, bicycling and mountain biking trails, river corridors, as well as recreational trails used for motorized vehicles. The Massachusetts DCR contributes to the Commonwealth Connections program by enabling trails projects through providing town agencies and non-profit organizations with information, education, training, and matching grants.
Initial efforts (2003) of the Commonwealth Connections initiative produced a teleologic greenway proposal map, a seven part strategy for greenway development, and a series of recommendations based on region.
The seven strategies proposed are:
1. Protect and promote long-distance trail corridors as primary spines of the Massachusetts Greenway and Trail System. This strategy emphasizes increased protection and maintenance of the 600 miles (970 km) of existing long-distance trails in the state of Massachusetts which would serve as "spines" for further and more extensive greenway development. Trails include the Appalachian Trail, Metacomet-Monadnock Trail, Midstate Trail, Warner Trail, Bay Circuit, and Taconic Trails. The strategy proposes earmarking these trails for federal and state funding; working with government, non-profit, and private entities to protect trail corridors; increasing tax break incentives to landowners who allow trail easements through their property; and completing protection of 200 miles (320 km) of these trails by 2010.
2.Protect critical river corridors and their tributaries statewide. This strategy would build on the success of federal and state river protection programs to further conserve river corridors and habitat in Massachusetts. Specific strategies would include earmarking critical corridors and habitat for state and federal funding; enforcing river protection efforts via education and outreach; ensuring the creation and protection of public river access points and walkways; and facilitating the creation of zoning laws to protect river corridors and public access areas.
3.Strategically link important natural and human communities. The purpose of this strategy would be to strengthen the viability of existing recreational areas and habitats by extending them and linking them to each other and to inhabited areas, thereby reducing habitat fragmentation, increasing resource awareness through the proliferation of public contact points, and expanding the recreational value of previously isolated resource islands. Specifics here would include identifying potential links between existing resources and focusing funds on the creation of such links; using such links as a way of connecting resources to population centers; and linking ecologically important areas to greenways as a way of economically combining both ecologic and recreational conservation efforts.
4.Create a cross-state multi-use trail reaching from Boston to the Berkshires. This effort would address the lack of east-west greenway corridors in the state and the strategic difficulty of developing such greenways (most current greenways are north-south corridors). This strategy identifies abandoned railway beds as possible routes. Specific efforts here would include developing state-wide coalitions to address the creation of and east-west greenways. (The goal of securing these east-west corridor trail elements by 2003 was recently met by the development and extension of several rails-to-trails projects in the east, west, and central parts of the state).