The Marion Pathways Committee announces the availability of bid packages for engineering services to build the Marion bike path.
The first phase of the bike path through Marion will start at the end of Industrial Park Drive in Mattapoisett and extend to Point Road in Marion, adjacent to I-195.
The idea for having a bike path on the old railroad bed started in 1971 when Conservation Commissioner Erland Briggs contacted Penn Central, the landowner at the time. Marion’s efforts to purchase the property got derailed several years later as Penn Central changed its corporate make-up though multiple reorganizations and bankruptcies.
Efforts almost restarted in 1994 when John Rockwell, then an Environmental Planner at the Buzzards Bay National Estuary Program, was organizing volunteers to tabulate the 1994 Open Space and Recreation Survey. “I noticed that the response to both the 1994 survey and an earlier 1986 survey indicated overwhelming support for a bike path,” Rockwell remembers. “It was the most desired recreational facility over two surveys and called out as desired in the 1974 Master Plan. I couldn’t figure out why no one was pursuing this.”
Negative reaction to the path at a 1994 public hearing derailed the town’s progress on the project until 1999 when Rockwell and former resident Ken Litke formed the Pathway Committee. Four property acquisitions over the ensuing years, together with three properties the Town already owned, secured the route from Mattapoisett to Point Road.
Construction costs for the bike path will be paid by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (DOT) after the 12-18 month design process has been completed.
Those interested in receiving a copy of the bid package should contact Debra Paiva at 508-748-3520 or dpaiva@marionma.gov.