The Minuteman Bikeway is a 10-mile (16-kilometre) paved multi-use

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetc ...

located in the

Greater Boston Greater Boston is the metropolitan region of New England encompassing the municipality of Boston (the capital of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the most populous city in New England) and its surrounding areas. The region forms the northern a ...

area of

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

. It runs from

Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst t ...

to Alewife station, at the northern end of the Red Line in

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

, passing through the towns of

Lexington Lexington may refer to: Places England * Laxton, Nottinghamshire, formerly Lexington Canada * Lexington, a district in Waterloo, Ontario United States * Lexington, Kentucky, the largest city with this name * Lexington, Massachusetts, the oldes ...

and Arlington along the way. Also along the route are several notable regional sites, including Alewife Brook Reservation, the

Cyrus Dallin Art Museum The Cyrus Dallin Art Museum (CDAM) in Arlington, Massachusetts, United States is dedicated to displaying the artworks and documentation of American sculptor, educator, and Indigenous rights activist Cyrus Dallin, who lived and worked in the town fo ...

Spy Pond Spy Pond, also known as Spie Pond in the 17th and 18th centuries, is a kettle hole pond located near the heart of Arlington, Massachusetts, adjacent to the Minuteman Bikeway. History Geological history Fifty thousand years ago, the area of Ar ...

, " Arlington’s Great Meadows" (actually located in Lexington), the Battle Green in Lexington, and

Hanscom Air Force Base Hanscom Air Force Base (AFB) is a United States Air Force base located predominantly within Bedford, Massachusetts, with portions extending into the adjoining towns of Lincoln, Concord and Lexington. The facility is adjacent to Hanscom Fiel ...

. At its Cambridge terminus, the bikeway connects with four other bike paths: *the

Fitchburg Cutoff Path The Fitchburg Cutoff (also called the Freight Cutoff) was a rail line running from Brighton Street (Hills Crossing station) in Belmont, Massachusetts, to Somerville Junction in Somerville, Massachusetts. It was constructed in two segments in ...

*the

Cambridge Linear Park The Fitchburg Cutoff (also called the Freight Cutoff) was a rail line running from Brighton Street (Hills Crossing station) in Belmont, Massachusetts, to Somerville Junction in Somerville, Massachusetts. It was constructed in two segments in ...

which, in turn, leads to the Somerville Community Path. *the Alewife Brook Greenway, a connection to the

Mystic River The Mystic River is a riverU.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 in Massachusetts, in the United States. In Massachusett, means "large estuary," alluding to ...

bike path, following

Alewife Brook Alewife Brook Reservation is a Massachusetts state park and urban wild located in Cambridge, Arlington, and Somerville. The park is managed by the state Department of Conservation and Recreation and was established in 1900. It is named for Ale ...

. The Alewife Brook extension received $4M from the

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) (), nicknamed the Recovery Act, was a stimulus package enacted by the 111th U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in February 2009. Developed in response to the Gr ...

as the "Minuteman Bikepath Connector" project. * a sidewalk path to Fresh Pond Reservation and the

Watertown Cambridge Greenway The Watertown Branch Railroad was a branch loop of the Fitchburg Railroad that was meant to serve the town of Watertown and the City of Waltham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, as an independent short line railroad; it also serviced the Wat ...

Plans are underway to extend the Somerville Community Path to downtown

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

, which would create a much larger continuous bikeway accessible from the Minuteman. At the Bedford end, the Minuteman Bikeway connects with the

Narrow Gauge Rail Trail The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad was a railroad company chartered in 1845 and opened in 1846 that operated in eastern Massachusetts. It and its successors provided passenger service until 1977 and freight service until 1980 or early 1981. ...

and the

Reformatory Branch Rail Trail The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad was a railroad company chartered in 1845 and opened in 1846 that operated in eastern Massachusetts. It and its successors provided passenger service until 1977 and freight service until 1980 or early 1981. ...

History

The path comprising the current Minuteman Bikeway has a long history. The trail closely approximates the route that

Paul Revere Paul Revere (; December 21, 1734 O.S. (January 1, 1735 N.S.)May 10, 1818) was an American silversmith, engraver, early industrialist, Sons of Liberty member, and Patriot and Founding Father. He is best known for his midnight ride to a ...

took on his famous ride in 1775, which heralded the beginning of the American Revolution. Along the way to becoming a railroad, the path's

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

was laid out east of Lexington in 1846 by the

Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad was a railroad company chartered in 1845 and opened in 1846 that operated in eastern Massachusetts. It and its successors provided passenger service until 1977 and freight service until 1980 or early 1981. ...

and west of Lexington in 1873 by the

Middlesex Central Railroad The Lexington and West Cambridge Railroad was a railroad company chartered in 1845 and opened in 1846 that operated in eastern Massachusetts. It and its successors provided passenger service until 1977 and freight service until 1980 or early 1981. ...

. Part of the original track can be seen in Arlington, near Uncle Sam Plaza in front of the Cyrus Dallin Art Museum.

Railbanking Railbanking is the act of preserving railroad rights-of-way for possible future use. Railbanking leaves the rail corridor, railbed, bridges or bridge right-of-way, and other infrastructure intact. This relieves the railroad's operator from the res ...

of the line was first proposed in 1974, three years before passenger rail service was discontinued, and a full seven years before rail service was discontinued altogether (in 1981). In 1991, the final plan for the conversion was approved, and construction started on the original section of the bikeway. The Arlington–Lexington section of the path was dedicated in September 1992; the Lexington–Bedford segment was delayed by water main construction and opened in May 1993. In 1998, the bikeway was extended a short distance from East Arlington to Alewife station in Cambridge. In 2002, it was repaved in Arlington and in 2004, the Bedford Depot Park Enhancement Project was completed at its western terminus.Viser, Matt (2007), "Rage on the bikeway", The Boston Globe, Volume 272, Number 1, 2007-07-01, p.A1. In 2008, the bikeway was the fifth inductee into the national Rail-Trail Hall of Fame by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. The property is currently owned by the

Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network ...

and leased to the municipalities through which it passes on an interim basis. The MBTA at one point planned to use this right-of-way to extend the Red Line to Arlington Center and Arlington Heights. Beginning in Spring 2015, the crossing of the path through Arlington Center is expected to be rebuilt to be less discontinuous.

Uses

Area residents use the bikeway for a host of activities, including

bicycling Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from two ...

, walking,

jogging Jogging is a form of trotting or running at a slow or leisurely pace. The main intention is to increase physical fitness with less stress on the body than from faster running but more than walking, or to maintain a steady speed for longer periods ...

, and

inline skating Inline skating is a multi-disciplinary sport and can refer to a number of activities practiced using inline skates. Inline skates typically have two to five polyurethane wheels depending on the style of practice, arranged in a single line by a ...

. The main use of the path, however, is for casual biking. In the winter there is often enough snow on the bikeway for

cross-country skiing Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...

. However, it is now plowed from Alewife Station to Bedford. No motorized vehicles are allowed except for powered

wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries ( paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), ce ...

s and emergency vehicles.

Future possibilities

New connections under contemplation include one from Lexington to the Battle Road Trail and one to the

Charles River The Charles River ( Massachusett: ''Quinobequin)'' (sometimes called the River Charles or simply the Charles) is an river in eastern Massachusetts. It flows northeast from Hopkinton to Boston along a highly meandering route, that doubles bac ...

bike path via Fresh Pond Reservation and the abandoned

Watertown Branch Railroad The Watertown Branch Railroad was a branch loop of the Fitchburg Railroad that was meant to serve the town of Watertown and the City of Waltham, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, as an independent short line railroad; it also serviced the Wat ...

. A portion of the latter path, at the Watertown end, has been completed and design work on the remaining section to Cambridge is expected to be finished in 2016. In April 2014, state officials announced that the Somerville Community Path would be extended alongside the

Green Line Extension The Green Line Extension (GLX) was a construction project to extend the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) Green Line light rail system northwest into Somerville and Medford, two inner suburbs of Boston, Massachusetts. The ...

, creating a continuous 4.5 mile route from the Minuteman Bikeway to Boston’s

Charles River Bike Path The Charles River Bike Path is a mixed-use path in the Boston, Massachusetts area. It is named after the cardiologist Paul Dudley White, a prominent advocate of preventive medicine. His research led him to proclaim frequently "''I'd like to put ...

. Officials had contemplated abandoning the path portion of the GLX in order to save costs, but after hiring new management, a contractor agreed to the parallel path while still cutting costs.

Gallery of views along the bikeway

File:Bedford Depot Park.jpg, Bedford Depot Park, with old B&M RDC File:Minuteman Bikeway in Bedford, August 2007.jpg, In Bedford, near Wiggins Avenue File:Minuteman Bikeway at the Lexington Depot, MA.jpg, Lexington Depot File:Spy pond arlington massachusetts 050322.jpg, Spy Pond, Arlington File:Minuteman Bikeway Lake Street Intersection (1).jpg, At Lake Street Intersection, Arlington File:Uncle Sam Plaza 20210213.jpg, At Uncle Sam Plaza File:Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum, Arlington MA.jpg, Cyrus E. Dallin Art Museum, Arlington MA File:Minuteman Bikeway in Arlington Center (Massachusetts).jpg, At Arlington Center File:Minuteman Bikeway, Cambridge.jpg, In Cambridge, near Alewife station and the junction with the

File:AlewifeBikeParking.agr.2001.JPG, Bike parking at Alewife station File:Trail connector along Alewife Station Access Road, February 2010.jpg, Connector to

References

External links