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Dept. of Conservation and Recreation

    DISASTER PREP

    Risk of Wildfire Is Elevated on Outer Cape

    Tending the forest understory could aid prevention efforts

    By

    WELLFLEET — Alfred Kraft lives on a long, narrow driveway at the end of Old Chequessett Neck Road in Wellfleet. On either side of his property, expanses of National Seashore and conservation land are dense with pitch pine and scrub oak, some alive, some lying on the forest floor.

    A fire road in the National Seashore. Wellfleet Fire Chief Rich Pauley worries that fire roads are overgrown due to lack of maintenance. (Photo by Sam Pollak)

    In recent years, Kraft has noticed a buildup of fallen trees in the understory around his house. He began to worry it could become tinder in a wildfire. “Then there were the fires in Maui,” he said.

    This month Kraft called Josh Nigro, the Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) forest fire control warden for Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket counties. Nigro assessed Kraft’s home and made recommendations based on the landscaping and building materials, using the National Fire Protection Association’s Firewise Program.

    Those recommendations include creating a “fire-free” area within five feet of a house using nonflammable landscaping materials like pebbles, as well as trimming and pruning large trees. Wood chips and mulch are ill advised, according to Nigro.

    Fire-resistant roof materials including cement, stucco, plaster, and masonry are another important consideration, Nigro said. “The myth,” he said about fires, is that they are “this gigantic wall of flame that is coming out of the woods and burning homes down.” That’s not how it works. Fire is spread by embers, he said, which can travel up to two miles in front of a fire.

    Much of the Outer Cape is at high risk for wildfire, according to the Barnstable County Wildfire Preparedness Plan developed by the county’s Cooperative Extension in 2012. That plan is the most recent blueprint for wildfire preparedness on the Outer Cape, but Nigro said that it is “still relevant and correct.” He added that the county is seeking funds to update the plan.

    The Cape’s humidity, Nigro said, dampens the risk of a catastrophic fire. But according to the plan, of the Outer Cape’s four towns, Truro and Wellfleet are at the highest risk, with 66 percent of Truro at high risk and 64 percent of Wellfleet at high risk. Forty-one percent of Eastham is at high risk as is 20 percent of Provincetown. A small area near Wellfleet’s Old Wharf Point is at “extreme risk.”

    Nigro, who worked on the plan, said many factors go into calculating risk. The biggest is potential fuel loading, or the amount of vegetation and dead brush on the forest floor that can catch fire. Weather patterns as well as topography are also factors, Nigro said. Those who live on higher ground are at greater risk because fire likes to climb.

    William Patterson, a retired professor at UMass Amherst who has studied prescribed fires on Cape Cod, said that the Outer Cape has a “highly flammable landscape.” Many of the plant species on Cape Cod are prone to burning. Plants like huckleberry, scrub oak, and pitch pine all produce flammable resins in their leaves and stems that contribute to the spread of fire.

    He also noted, however, that because the Outer Cape is so narrow “you could get a roaring fire and it wouldn’t burn any more than a mile or two. It would just reach the ocean.”

    Nigro said that on average there are five brush fires per year on the Outer Cape, and those fires each burn only about a tenth of an acre.

    Fire’s Benefits, Suppressed

    David Crary, the retired fire management officer for the National Seashore, said that there haven’t been any fires of over five acres in at least 60 to 80 years. But samples of charcoal layers in sediment cores taken from Wellfleet and Truro ponds show that the Cape’s natural fire cycle included larger fires every 30 to 50 years before European settlement, Crary said.

    “Fire is a natural part of the landscape,” he said. “There are species on the Cape that are dependent on fire.” Scrub oak, for example, “resprouts vigorously after fire,” said Patterson.

    In the early 20th century, larger fires became less common as an increase in tourism and residential development led public opinion to favor fire suppression. “European-descended human beings have put a bunch of stuff in the way,” Crary said.

    Fires were a common tool used by indigenous tribes on the Cape for land cultivation and agriculture, Patterson said. “I have devoted much of my career trying to learn a fraction of what the indigenous people knew about how to use fire,” he said.

    Not only do fires “get things back on track ecosystem-wise,” Crary said, they control the buildup of fuel, like dead brush and pinecones, in the forest understory. He said that fire behaves like a vacuum cleaner, clearing dead brush to make way for new forests.

    Our preference for fire suppression means that an accumulation of fuel heightens the risk of a more catastrophic fire. And “the longer you go, the more susceptible you are,” Crary said.

    Crary, who worked for the Seashore for 33 years before retiring in 2021, facilitated prescribed burns where trained staff set tracts of Seashore land on fire to restore vegetation and reduce fire hazards. He estimated that he oversaw at least 400 prescribed burns between 1985 and 2021, most of which were smaller than three acres.

    But since he retired, the Seashore has not hired a new fire management officer, and there have been no burns, Crary said. “It corresponds exactly with my retirement,” Crary said.

    Wellfleet Fire Chief Richard Pauley said that Crary’s burn program “was very helpful” in mitigating the risk of wildfire. “But that hasn’t happened in years,” he said.

    Pauley said that while his staff is well trained, he worries about the town’s access to much of the Seashore, which makes up 60 percent of Wellfleet’s total upland area.

    “We have fire roads that have not been maintained in well over 10 years,” Pauley said. “The width of the fire roads and the fact that they have not been brushed back so we can get down there is a big issue. The Seashore has not been proactive on that at all.”

    Pauley said that the town does not have the resources to manage the many fire roads that snake throughout Wellfleet’s forests, “nor is it in our purview.”

    Kraft also encountered obstacles attempting to clear the fuel load that has built up on his property. Because it is on a coastal bank abutting the Herring River estuary, he is required to get the conservation commission’s approval to remove trees, including dead ones.

    “When I brought up the possibility of removing some of the dead trees lying on our land, conservation was not enthusiastic about it,” Kraft said. “They said that the dead trees were habitat.”

    The removal of trees for mitigating wildfire risk came up at Wellfleet’s special town meeting on Sept. 18, when voters passed a bylaw amendment to allow the cutting of timber in the National Seashore as part of a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP).

    The planning board unanimously voted against the amendment, arguing that Wellfleet currently does not have such a plan.

    Pauley said the fire dept. will begin to develop a plan for the town this winter. But because many of the high-risk areas in Wellfleet are in the Seashore, the Park Service will have to cooperate.

    The possibility of a larger fire on the Outer Cape “is a matter of time,” Pauley said. “I walk through the woods, I look around me, and I’m amazed we haven’t had something more significant yet.”

    ODD LOT

    DCR’s Route 6 Lot Is ‘Not a Parking Area’

    The state agency says property ‘will be gated and locked’

    By

    WELLFLEET — The state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is finishing work on a new parking lot at 2520 Route 6 as part of its construction of a bike trail extension from Lecount Hollow Road to the Wellfleet Hollow Campground.

    The state DCR demolished the buildings on the property (including a cottage that had been rented by year-round tenants), graded the lot, and added a wooden fence, berms, and trees.

    But the lot won’t be used anytime soon, said the DCR’s Olivia Dorrance this week.

    The state purchased the 0.46-acre commercial-zoned property from Charles Amsler in 2019 for $341,000. Originally, it was going to be a parking area with benches and bathrooms at the end of the bike trail extension on the old railroad bed, two miles north of Lecount Hollow Road. It would have become the new terminus of the Cape Cod Rail Trail, which begins in South Yarmouth.

    But residents objected to the state’s plan, arguing that it was reckless to direct cyclists to Route 6, particularly at this spot, the site of a fatal bike accident in 2013. Sixteen-year-old Miles Tibbets was killed by a car while crossing the highway.

    The new DCR lot stands ready, but for what? (Photo Nancy Bloom)

    At the April 23, 2019 town meeting, voters overwhelmingly favored an article asking that town and state officials explore other routes and halt any planning of the bike trail extension until deliberations on alternatives were complete.

    In September 2020, the state agency agreed to the town meeting voters’ request. In a letter to the select board, DCR officials stated the agency had decided to “phase” the project and extend the bike path only as far as the campground.

    Nevertheless, when the first phase began in March, the state also obtained demolition permits to clear the small buildings at the Amsler lot. The Wellfleet Housing Authority had inquired about trying to move or somehow use the cottage there. It was a long-time year-round unit, said Elaine McIlroy, chair of the housing authority. But the DCR responded that the agency planned to use it itself. The cottage is now gone and presumably demolished, McIlroy said. The lot has been used for staging of construction equipment as part of phase one, Dorrance said.

    Phase one is ongoing, but when it is complete the area “will be gated and locked,” Dorrance stated in an email to the Independent.

    In fact, the DCR is no longer referring to it as a parking lot.

    “This parcel is not a parking area or a trailhead and is not expected to accommodate either for the remainder of phase one,” Dorrance stated.

    This has raised questions about what exactly the DCR plans to do with the lot.

    State officials have asserted that the original plan to extend the rail trail from the campground to Route 6 is still the best bike route available.

    “DCR continues to believe that the safest and best approach for users of the Cape Cod Rail Trail and for Wellfleet residents of all ages will be to continue the Cape Cod Rail Trail on the former railroad corridor to a new terminus trailhead at Route 6,” stated a 2020 letter from the DCR to the Wellfleet Select Board. “However, as requested, we have put those plans on hold for the present.”

    Peter Cook, chair of the Wellfleet Bike & Walkways Committee, said the DCR speaks “in riddles,” but it sounds as if they plan to extend the bike trail to the highway “when they get the green light.”

    Select board chair Ryan Curley said he cannot predict DCR’s plans. “But I am sure the DCR won’t give it up easily,” he added.

    In August, the bike & walkways committee completed an 86-page analysis of other possible bike routes from Wellfleet to Truro. The state’s plan directing cyclists to Route 6 “came in dead last” based on the committee’s criteria: safety, environmental preservation, preservation of town character, respect for private property, and improvement of connectivity, Cook said.

    But their first-choice route faces a formidable roadblock, namely the Cape Cod National Seashore. Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom has said the National Park Service has no interest in hosting “new assets we will be forced to maintain.”

    With no viable bike path alternatives on the horizon, DCR may now be in a better position to push for the Route 6 terminus. Or it could defer to local opposition. That would leave Wellfleet with a parking lot with no purpose.

    PUBLIC SAFETY

    Select Board Supports Route 6 Improvements

    Mass. Dept. of Transportation plan goes to a public hearing Sept. 22

    By

    WELLFLEET — It has taken years, but the plan to add turn lanes, bike paths, and sidewalks to the intersection of Route 6 and Main Street cleared the select board’s review on Aug. 27 and will now go to a full public hearing on Sept. 22.

    The improvement plan, first proposed in 2014 in reaction to a spate of accidents, has generated more letters from the public than any other in Helen Miranda Wilson’s 10 years on the select board, she said. The proposal by the state Dept. of Transportation (DOT) was stalled when it became intertwined with the Cape Cod Rail Trail extension proposed by the Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), which proved unpopular. The bike path extension now stops at the Wellfleet Hollow Campground, a mile from Route 6.

    The select board members liked the presentation by Jill McLaughlin, senior transportation engineer with Stantec, who the town contracted to do the design.

    The select board chose Option 2, bottom, for the redesign of Route 6. (Courtesy Wellfleet Select Board)

    There are six major elements to the project. The first is eliminating the passing lane at the lights, which creates an unsafe incentive for people to race past each other.

    Second, with that lane gone, there’s room for a left-hand turn lane on the westbound side so drivers can get to the Outer Cape Health Pharmacy.

    Third, the intersection will be flanked by sidewalks, 5 feet wide on the westbound side and 6.5 feet wide on the eastbound side, where PJ’s Family Restaurant and Cumberland Farms sit. The DOT originally proposed a 10-foot-wide mixed-use lane there, but the select board protested that mixing bikes with pedestrians was unsafe. Though they did not vote to approve this particular change, option 2, they said they much preferred it and left it to the next hearing for further discussion.

    Fourth, Stantec proposed new painted bike lanes, 5 feet wide, on each side, separated from the sidewalks by a 3-foot grass berm westbound and a 6.5-foot berm eastbound. The car lanes will be separated from the bike lanes by a two-foot buffer painted on the asphalt.

    The fifth change will occur at Cahoon Hollow Road, where a left-hand turn lane will be added on the westbound side.

    Police Chief Mike Hurley asked if the exit from Cahoon Hollow onto Route 6 should become a no-left-turn area.

    McLaughlin said she could talk with the DOT about it. Select board member Mike DeVasto said he worried people would then just drive into PJ’s parking lot and make the left from there. The select board held off on voting on this portion of the plan pending more information from McLaughlin.

    The last major change would occur on Main Street. Approaching the intersection, the plan originally had 5-foot bike lanes on both sides, without any separation from the road except a painted line. A 5-foot-wide sidewalk would be added by the Wicked Oyster and Piping Plover.

    DeVasto said he would prefer to have a 2-foot separation from the vehicle lanes and reduce the bike lanes to 3-foot paths. McLaughlin said she thought that would be possible.

    But not all the select board members liked that plan.

    John Wolf said he did not think pedestrians should be encouraged, with the addition of sidewalks, to use that intersection at all. Wilson agreed, saying, “There is very little foot and cycling traffic most of the year.”

    But McLaughlin said there are well-worn tracks in the dirt where pedestrians and cyclists edge along Main Street and by the cemetery on Route 6.

    DeVasto supported the sidewalks.

    “I don’t know the last time you were on the side of the road there, but it does not feel safe,” he said. “I don’t see why we should be relegating people who are walking to poison-ivy-covered goat paths.”

    “There are bicyclists there all the time,” added board member Janet Reinhart. “At night, workers drive home on the shoulder. You don’t see them until you are right on them. There is liability for inaction. We really gotta do something and move forward.”

    Chief Hurley lent his support as well.

    “We need a safe place for cyclists and pedestrians, because you are not going to stop them from using the area,” Hurley said.

    Only two members of the public spoke up. Mimi Butts, whose family owns Bay Sails Marine west of the Main Street interaction, said someone should be considering the businesses in the area, though she did not elaborate. And Irene Goldman called the design a big improvement.

    “This goes a long way to making progress for everyone, bicyclists, pedestrians, and motorists,” she said.

    Next is the hearing on Sept. 22. The project design is 25-percent complete. The 75-percent plan will be done by January 2022, said McLaughlin. A final design is expected by July or August of next year. The project is being paid for the federal government and the state.

    VICIOUS CYCLE

    Local Opposition Kills Bike Path Link to Rt. 6

    But plan to make Main St. intersection safer is still alive

    By

    WELLFLEET — The state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) will not extend the Cape Cod Rail Trail all the way to Route 6, at least not for the next five years.

    Paul Jahnige, director of trails and greenways for the DCR, said at a “round table” discussion on June 14 that the plan to extend the bike path to Route 6 by Oriole Lane in Wellfleet “is not in our five-year capital plan at this point.”

    Jahnige said DCR officials still think the scuttled plan is the “safest asset for the community.” But that plan is now abandoned following years of opposition from Wellfleet residents who argued that it was unsafe to lead cyclists to a new terminus and parking lot at Route 6. The land that the DCR purchased by Oriole Lane for a bike trail parking lot is now being used only to store equipment for the DCR’s ongoing construction of the Rail Trail from Lecount Hollow Road to the Wellfleet Hollow Campground, he said. That section of the Rail Trail extension is expected to be completed next year. The 25.5-mile bike path, which begins in South Yarmouth, will now end at the campground, formerly Paine’s, on Old King’s Highway.

    Existing conditions at the one of most dangerous intersections in the county.

    Wellfleet residents did not express gratitude for the state’s capitulation to their concerns at the June 14 meeting, attended virtually by 43 people. The select board members instead continued their criticism of the next big public project in the area, the reconfiguration of the Route 6 intersection with Main Street. That project, being handled by the state Dept. of Transportation (DOT), aims to make one of the most dangerous intersections in Barnstable County safer.

    The intersection has over a dozen curb cuts, including at PJ’s restaurant, Cumberland Farms, Bay Sails Marine, a real estate agency, and a gas station. A fast-moving two-lane highway becomes three lanes briefly by the traffic light, which creates a speedway for drivers trying to pass others.

    Stantec, the road design company, proposes to get rid of the three-lane highway under the traffic lights and keep just two lanes but add to the southbound side a left-turn lane into the Outer Cape Health Services Pharmacy, said the company’s Jill McLaughlin.

    The lack of a turn lane is one reason this intersection has been designated a “high-crash location,” McLaughlin said.

    No one had any problems with the changes proposed for car traffic. But many did find cause for worry at changes related to cyclists. The plan is now 25-percent complete, and there will be a public hearing on the design in a few weeks, though no date has been set.

    A Dept. of Transportation rendering shows the proposed redesign of the Rt. 6-Main Street intersection, with bike lanes and a shared pathway.

    Stantec proposes to add a 10-foot-wide shared pathway for cyclists and walkers on the east side of the highway, with a five-foot bike lane on both sides. The bike lanes would be marked with paint on the asphalt next to the driving lanes. The shared-use walking and biking pathway on the east side, however, would be separated from the highway by a grass berm and paved with white concrete so it’s visible to motorists as a place for pedestrians and cyclists.

    Select board member Ryan Curley said a bike path with no physical separation from motorists is not safe. He asked if the shared-use path could become a bike path. Select board members Helen Miranda Wilson and Mike DeVasto, the chair, expressed similar concerns.

    Greg Mischel, the DOT project manager, said the shared-use pathway is intended for recreational cyclists who want to get ice cream or access some of the other businesses on the highway. The bike lane on the roadway is intended for serious cyclists, who are speeding through, such as Mischel himself.

    “I’m an avid cyclist,” Mischel said. “I don’t use the rail trails; they aren’t safe for me to ride on. Too many conflicts. As a cyclist, I’d prefer to go on Route 6.”

    Curley said the bike paths would be much less dangerous if physical barriers such as those used to separate the lanes on the two-lane portion of the highway from Dennis to Orleans, known as “suicide alley,” could be used.

    The state officials raised a number of objections to that idea. McLaughlin said barriers could impede visibility for motorists and inconvenience snow plowers.

    DeVasto said he’s not sure if a safe solution exists for bicycles, unless alternative routes through Wellfleet that avoid this intersection can be found. But identifying such routes has been elusive, despite years of trying by the Wellfleet Bike and Walkways Committee. Cape Cod National Seashore Supt. Brian Carlstrom is not rolling out the welcome mat to create new bike paths through the Seashore.

    “We are not interested in developing new bike paths,” Carlstrom said. “We’re not intending to create new assets we’ll be forced to maintain.”

    Jahnige of the DCR said, “The current condition on Route 6 is the least safe.”

    His view was echoed by Steven Tupper, the transportation program manager for the Cape Cod Commission, who said finalizing design details is a difficult task. But, he added, people will seek out ways to get to their destination, even without safe options. Tupper asked officials to consider if they “want to encourage people to make choices that aren’t safe.”

    DISTURBANCE

    Rail Trail Extension Work Starts With an Arrest

    A fence goes up, trees come down, a cone is thrown

    By

    WELLFLEET — Richard Blakeley said he’s ashamed of his behavior, which led to him being arrested for disturbing the peace and malicious destruction of property on Friday, March 26.

    “I was really upset,” said Blakeley, 60, outside the home his family has owned since World War II. The house is next to the Cape Cod Rail Trail parking lot off Lecount Hollow Road in South Wellfleet. The state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) began renovating the lot on March 22.

    What’s upsetting Blakeley is that the renovation, which involves building a fence and a dedicated bike lane, will stop him from using the parking lot to get to the shed he and his father built in 1997. The shed is where he stores shellfish and gear. He will instead, he said, have to create a driveway through his mother’s garden and over his septic system, which may destroy both.

    Richard Blakeley outside his shellfish shed. (Photos K.C. Myers)

    “I can bring a machine in and dig up my yard, but my leaching field is back there,” he said. “And right now my mom is in her late 80s and she wants to see her lilacs bloom one more time. I’m just asking for the access I’ve always had. I use it 8 to 10 times a day. I’m safe, I’m careful, I’m always on the lookout for bikers.”

    His criminal case was continued until June. Philippe Rispoli, who owns the PB Boulangerie Bistro across the street, and Rispoli’s wife, Eliza Cox, who is a lawyer with Nutter, McClennen & Fish, saw him get arrested, Blakeley said. They have hired the Boston criminal defense attorney J.W. Carney Jr., who was James “Whitey” Bulger’s lawyer, to represent him, Blakeley said. Cox would not confirm this, except to say that Blakeley is a dear friend.

    DCR spokeswoman Olivia Dorrance would not answer questions about the parking lot renovation or the Blakeley case. Her only comment, by email, was, “The goal of the redesign is to create a safe path through the parking lot to the Rail Trail connection.”

    DCR’s plans to extend the bike trail about two miles from Lecount Hollow Road, first to the state-owned Wellfleet Hollow Campground, and then to Route 6, has stirred controversy for years. But critics of the plan targeted the opposite end of the extension, the terminus on Route 6. The objections centered on cyclists being funneled onto the highway in a busy area south of the intersection with Main Street.

    Last year, the DCR announced it would put on hold the plans to end the trail at Route 6 and invited the town to propose alternatives. Meanwhile, the state agency would renovate the parking lot at Lecount Hollow Road and pave the former railroad bed up to the campground, which the state purchased from the Paine family in 2018.

    Work began on March 22 to widen the former railroad bed for the extended bike path. The DCR is also providing access to two properties that previously used the rail bed.

    Blakeley began his protest when the work started on March 22. Daniel Boyer, a laborer working on the parking lot, called the police at 8:18 a.m that day. He described Blakeley “coming out of his house for an entire week and swearing at him and his crew while getting in their way,” stated the report written by Wellfleet Police Sgt. Paul Clark.

    Boyer said he ignored the harassment until Friday morning, when Blakeley “started getting in his face while swearing at him and threatening he would ‘end him,’ ” Clark wrote.

    Boyer told the police he walked away and that’s when Blakely threw a large orange traffic cone at Boyer’s vehicle. Small scratches were found on the vehicle, Clark wrote.

    “I felt desperate, and I threw a cone at one of this guy’s cars,” Blakeley told the Independent.

    Blakeley said DCR indicated a year ago that he would no longer be able to use the parking lot once the renovation was underway. For safety reasons, they told him, he would not be able to drive his truck through the bike lane. He said he plans to fight the agency in court.

    Blakeley is not the only one upset about last week’s work. Martha Hevenor of 70 Cassick Valley Road said she objects to DCR clearing a roadway alongside the bike path near her house. That’s being done, she said, for two property owners who have used the railroad bed for access. It could have been done without widening the trail so much, in Hevenor’s view.

    Hevenor said she favored the bike trail extension to Route 6. In her view, cyclists who don’t want to go on the highway won’t do it. Also, she said, her colleagues at the Cape Cod Commission (CCC), where she is a planner, worked on the Outer Cape Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan and found no alternative to Route 6 for getting through that part of Wellfleet toward Provincetown.

    The DCR plans call for a 12-foot-wide driveway and a 10-foot-wide bike path separated by a 5-foot buffer, with shoulders on both sides.

    Hevenor, who said she was not speaking as a CCC planner, said she never joined in the attacks on the project because she didn’t want to be “that NIMBY [not in my back yard] person.” But when the trucks began clearing behind her house, she said she had to speak up. She said the DCR never notified her or other abutters about the construction start date, though the DCR website does give it as March 15, 2021.

    Rail Trail

    Wellfleet Select Board Unmoved by Bike Path Extension Opponents

    In a close vote, board decides not to appeal to Gov. Baker

    By

    WELLFLEET — Following a heated exchange on Monday with a crowd opposed to the extension of the Cape Cod Rail Trail extension to Route 6, the Wellfleet Select Board voted against sending a letter to Mass. Gov. Charlie Baker about it. The letter would have asked the governor to temporarily stop work on the current bike trail plan.

    In a 3-2 vote select board chair Janet Reinhart and members Justina Carlson and Kathleen Bacon argued that the state Dept. of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) staff is planning to return to Wellfleet later this month for another discussion about the controversial bike trail, at which point the questions about safety may be addressed.

    “It’s common sense to look at what they come back with in October,” Carlson said. “I did talk to [state Rep.] Sarah Peake who has to deal with realities as an elected official and she said this money might not come around again. I’d like to see what they come back with and see if our safety concerns are dealt with.”

    But select board members Michael DeVasto and Helen Miranda Wilson, who together drafted a letter to send to the governor, agreed with a group called the Concerned Citizens for a Sensible Wellfleet Bikeway. Rebecca Noble, a group member, played a voicemail from Dan Driscoll, of the DCR, which he had left her on Sept. 24. In the voicemail, he said the DCR’s plans are moving forward with “no big changes.”

    Late Tuesday, a DCR spokeswoman seemed to confirm this by saying that design of the trail is “90 percent complete” and that the DCR plans to hold a third and final meeting in early 2020 with the full plan. Notification of the meeting date will be posted soon, according to the spokeswoman.

    Noble’s group has circulated a petition against the bike path extension plan, asking that the extension stop at Old County Road before arriving at Route 6. It has over 1,000 signatures, DeVasto said.

    “The DCR and the DOT plans needlessly compound dangers in a congested stretch of US Route 6 with multiple curb cuts, already known for traffic accidents and fatalities,” the petition states, in part.

    The DCR’s plan includes paving the state-owned former railroad right-of-way for two miles to extend the existing bike path from Lecount Hollow Road to Route 6, where the state has purchased land to build a parking area about a quarter-mile south of the intersection with Main Street.

     

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