The Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) voted to push the Swampscott Rail Trail project’s completion to fiscal year 2029.
At a Thursday meeting, the MPO board said Swampscott was not far enough along to remain in its current Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), a five-year rolling capital plan. Marzie Galzka, Swampscott’s director of community and economic development, said during the virtual meeting that the policy changes were never shared with the town. David Mohler, the executive director of planning at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT), said Swampscott “staff did everything as they were supposed to do” but still moved to keep the project in 2029.
“MassDOT believes we can get this project ready by ‘29,” Mohler said. “We and the town believe this can get permitted and designed by ‘29.”
The board approved keeping the project in fiscal year 2029, with multiple abstentions and one dissenting vote from electrical contractor and Board Member Thomas Bent.
The Swampscott Rail Trail is designed to connect neighborhoods and provide off-road transportation across town. Once complete, the trail will span two miles as an off-road, shared-use path running from Bradlee Avenue to Stetson Avenue. The trail will pass through neighborhoods and wooded areas, as well as alongside ponds and other town-owned conservation land.
The trail is also meant to connect to the Swampscott Elementary School, Swampscott Middle School and the Clarke School, where the Recreation Department is currently housed. Alexis Runstadler, the president of the Friends of the Swampscott Rail Trail, noted in the meeting that this proves the “need for this trail has never been greater.”
“This is a student safety issue as much as a transportation one,” Runstadler said. “Many of these children have no safe, off-road trail.”
State Rep. Jennifer Armini (D–Essex) said that the project has been in the works since the 1970s.
“This project reflects everything Massachusetts seeks in a project on transportation,” Armini said.
In 2017, Town Meeting Members voted to allocate $850,000 to build the Rail Trail in a vote of 210 to 56. The article was also unanimously sponsored by the Select Board and supported by the Finance Committee, Capital Improvement Committee, School Committee, Planning Board, Open Space and Recreation Plan Committee, and Conservation Commission.
Swampscott voters later affirmed the Town Meeting’s approval by a margin of 12%.
In 2020-21, the first two segments of the Swampscott Rail Trail were constructed between the Marblehead town line and Bradlee Avenue. In 2022, construction of a completed trail was programmed as a MassDOT project for $8.9 million.
“If the pandemic taught us one thing, it’s the importance of green space,” Select Board Member David Grishman said in the virtual meeting Thursday. “I very much look forward to the day Swampscott residents are able to bike and walk on the Rail Trail.”
The Friends of the Swampscott Rail Trail raised over $150,000 from local residents and businesses, which was presented to the town in 2023. The friends also spent over $1,000 in native plantings, and the group also installed the first trailhead kiosk.
At the same time, a 99-year ground lease with National Grid was signed by Swampscott to use the utility corridor for the Rail Trail. This settled a lawsuit around the taking of easements.
Since 2022, the town’s Department of Community Development has worked with MassDOT and National Grid on design and engineering work.
Galzka warned at Thursday’s meeting that further delays could jeopardize the trail’s completion.
“Delay in this project or deferring it for a while will really risk losing the momentum that we have built so strongly,” Galazka said.
Now with the project’s completion set for another three years, MPO MetroWest Board Member Dennis Giombetti requested a re-occurring update report so that Swampscott “has wake-up calls so we can get it really back on track.”
