• Become a member of the Eastern Trail

Uncategorised

Archived News
January 25, 20120

Bicycle and Pedestrian Trails in Maine: A Guide to Maine’s MultiUse Connections (Summer 2010)

bikepedreportBackground: This report provides a listing of Maine Bicycle and Pedestrian Shared Use Trails in Maine, including the Eastern Trail. This report is divided into two sections. The first section lists the bicycle and pedestrian connections that are for nonmotorized uses only. They generally have improved surfaces of either asphalt or stone dust The second section includes Shared Use Paths which also allow ATV’s. All of these trails have been built with partnerships at the local, state, and federal level. They are all open to the public and are built to connect neighborhoods, villages, business areas and towns. This report is meant to be a general outline of bicycle and pedestrian offroad opportunities in Maine.

Walking and Bicycling Trails:

  • Acadia Carriage Roads (Mt Desert Island)
  • Androscoggin River Bicycle and Pedestrian Path (Brunswick)
  • Auburn Riverwalk (Lewiston, Auburn)
  • Beth Condon Pathway (Yarmouth)
  • Bethel Pathway (Bethel)
  • Collins Pond Pathway (Caribou)
  • Calais Waterfront Walkway (Calais)
  • Eastern Trail (Kittery, Old Orchard Beach, Scarborough, South Portland)
  • Foundry Road Path (Livermore Falls)
  • Kennebec River Rail Trail (Augusta, Hallowell, Farmington, Gardiner)
  • Lisbon Trails (Lisbon)
  • Mountain Division Trail (Windham, Gorham, Standish)
  • Mousam Way Bike Path (Sanford)
  • Narrow Gauge Pathway (Carrabassett Valley)
  • Portland Trails – Back Cove/ Eastern Promenade/Bayside Trails (Portland)
  • Presque Isle Bicycle and Pedestrian Walkway (Presque Isle)
  • Sipayik Trail (Perry)
  • South Portland Greenbelt (South Portland)
  • University of Maine Bicycle Path (Old Town, Orono)
  • Westbrook River Walk (Westbrook)

Shared Use Paths: Motorized and NonMotorized Use:

  • Aroostook Valley Rail Trail (Washburn, Van Buren)
  • Down East Sunrise Trail (Ayers Junction to Ellsworth)
  • Four Season Adventure Trail (Newport to DoverFoxcroft)
  • Greenville Junction to Shirley Mills Rail Trail (Greenville Junction)
  • Lagrange Rail Trail (LagrangeMedford)
  • PattenSherman MultiUse Trail (Patten)
  • Sanford Rail Trail (Sanford)
  • Solon/Bingham (Solon to Bingham)
  • Southern Bangor and Aroostook Trail (Houlton, Phair Junction)
  • St. John Valley Heritage Trail (Fort Kent)
  • Turner Bike Path (Turner)
  • Whistle Stop Trail (Jay, Farmington)

Read the full report here.

Archived News
January 25, 20120

Equestrian Use of the Eastern Trail

At a meeting with a group of equestrians on January 11, 2012, the Eastern Trail Municipal District lifted the moratorium on horseback riding on the Kennebunk-Arundel-Biddeford section of the Eastern Trial until March 1, 2012, with the understanding that members of the local equestrian community will work with the ETMD to define, by that date, a set of rules and responsibilities to govern their use of the trail, and which they would publicize and support to ensure that the trail can be maintained for all users.

The equestrian community plans on developing rules for equestrians use of the trail to present at the next ETMD meeting on February 8th. FMI, contact the ETA by email or by phone at 207-284-9260.

Archived News
January 19, 20120

Deirdre Fleming: Funding for projects may be headed to Maine

by Deirdre Fleming, Portland Press Herald, December 25, 2011

[Ed.’s Note: This article describes USM Professor Richard Barringer’s tale of an outdoor funding windfall heading for Maine, one which might happen in 2012. Key Quote: “And in southern Maine this year, a windfall of bicycle and pedestrian grant cash allowed the East Coast Greenway, called the Eastern Trail here, to get a bridge over Interstate 95 in Kennebunk and another over Route 1 in Saco — nearly turning it into a contiguous off-road trail through seven urban towns.”]

Professor Richard Barringer likes to start at the beginning when he begins the tale of the outdoor funding windfall heading for Maine. But really, the good timing and hope in this story is in what could happen in 2012.

Either way, his story is one worth telling on Christmas Day.

Last year the University of Southern Maine professor handed a report he was commissioned to write by the New England governors to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar who, he said, passed it on to President Obama. And the chiefs at the helm of America’s outdoors policy liked what they saw.

Barringer’s report very closely aligned with Obama’s goals laid out in America’s Great Outdoors initiative rolled out by the president in April 2010. It highlighted seven projects around major natural corridors in New England that with relatively little funding could change the way Americans here live, work, play, recreate and relate to the environment.

These projects would fight childhood obesity, reinvest our collective passion in land, and bring nature and good health into our everyday lives.

But like a seasoned professor, Barringer takes even a bigger view of the history that could play out here.

“Let me take you back further, all the way back to 1908 when the governors of New England gathered to talk about the devastated headwaters, the logging practices,” Barringer said Thursday. “The result of that meeting was the Green Mountain and White Mountain national forests. In 2008, the New England governors memorialized that meeting and created this commission on land conservation.”

Read the full article on-line here.

Share this article:

Archived News
January 18, 20120

Unwelcome at any speed? Irresponsible ATV riders create hostile climate for all operators (March 2002)

Lead Editorial Reprinted from the Journal Tribune, March 29, 2002

It’s a beautiful day. Spring is waking up the birds and trees all around us and the last patches of wet spring snow are disappearing, for now at least.

Damage on Eastern Trail caused by ATV use

Of course this means the all-terrain vehicles are returning to our back woods and hillsides, threatening to turn both into noisy, rutted wastelands.

The reputation of ATV riders probably couldn’t be much lower than it is right now in Maine. There are reports of riders ignoring and even cutting down “no trespassing” signs, eroding stream banks and treating trails so badly that property owners kick out snowmobiles, too.

Some of the worst offenders are cutting noisily through our own back yard. The Kennebunk Plains conservation area has been damaged and Portland Natural Gas lines endangered by riders who’ve moved boulders that were supposed to block their way. In Sanford, irresponsible riders have done damage around the industrial park, despite enforcement actions police and the warden service.

A case in point: Last Sunday, a lone ATV rider shot through an intersection on Route 109 near the Center for Shopping and passed cars by traveling on the wrong side of the road, so fast that if drivers had blinked they might not have seen him.

This kind of reckless behavior endangers pedestrians, drivers and ATV riders themselves as well as harming wetlands, streams and hillsides and destroying the peace of the countryside.

It’s tempting to say we ought to get rid of them all, the way the state ordered dealers to stop selling 3-wheel ATVs in favor of more stable 4-wheelers a few years ago. But the problem is not the vehicles, and it’s not all the riders.

It’s the yahoos among them that make life difficult for all of us. Those people should lose their right to continue terrorizing us.

Police have yet to catch up with this issue even though they’ve tried, and continue to do so. Possibly more of them need to get out of their cruisers and onto ATVs of their own or other vehicles that will allow them to follow rogue riders into the woods. Maybe the minimum age for riders ought to be raised. (Ten-year-olds may ride now, within limits.) Or possibly the safety classes that are mandatory for the youngest riders should be required for all ages.

If they were generally responsible, ATV riders would have wider access to trails and fields in York County. There would be fewer barriers and “no-trespassing” signs. But that’s a big “if” at this point.

Riders need to show they’ve got the maturity to deserve something other than the yahoo label. Or they need to turn in the keys to their toys.

https://www.easterntrail.org/