'Many years.' Gaps remain for end-to-end Cape bike path, with long planning, official says

Editor's note: This story was updated Feb. 13, 2024, to correct the construction cost for a Mid-Cape section of the Cape Cod Rail Trail.

Vision 88 is an initiative by the Cape Cod Commission to build a Cape-wide rail trail, converting sections of unused railroad and other trail space into an expansive network of bicycle and pedestrian paths.

And while parts have been completed — like Shining Sea Bikeway in Falmouth — other sections remain unfinished.

Those unfinished trails include the proposed Bourne Rail Trail, a 4.4 mile shared use path in Sandwich, the Barnstable-Yarmouth section in the Mid-Cape area and an Outer Cape portion from Wellfleet to Provincetown.

“Currently, the single vehicle is the predominant means of getting around," said Cape Cod Commission Deputy Director Steven Tupper.

Long-term, county planners are thinking about overall investments in the Cape's transportation network, Tupper said.

"We want to make investments in bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure and we want to think about how all of those modes of transportation can connect together,” he said.

Project costs for proposal Outer Cape

The proposed section expanding the Cape Cod Rail Trail to northern sections of Wellfleet, Truro and ultimately Provincetown is the largest unfinished path in the Vision 88 project.

Spanning nearly 20 miles from near Lecount Hollow Road in South Wellfleet to its proposed terminus in Provincetown near Arch Street, the Outer Cape section of the Rail Trail comes with a set of unique challenges, Tupper said.

A state design in 2021 to route the rail trail along an old railroad bed from Lecount Hollow Road north to Route 6 was paused. Community opposition to the design was vocal.

“On the Outer Cape, I think we have to be ambitious by necessity,” Tupper said. “We're really wanting to make sure we connect up with different options when thinking about what transit amenities exist today or could be developed, and then how these projects could work together to create more options on the Outer Cape.”

The current proposal sees the roughly 20-mile-long “spine” trail interconnecting with a network of smaller trails — some leading to the Cape Cod National Seashore and the Cape Cod Bay shoreline, and others connecting into and out of the towns of Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown.

In 2017, the project was estimated to cost around $28 million, according to the Cape Cod Commission. But Tupper said construction costs have “skyrocketed” since then, making an updated figure for the project and a timeline for completion uncertain.

“I'm hopeful in terms of the funding outlook in the next several years, but it’ll certainly take many years to complete that overall vision on the Outer Cape,” Tupper said.

In 2021: 'A long way to go': Alternatives to Wellfleet bike path plan raise concerns, too

Construction bid going out in August for Mid-Cape section

One portion of the trail with a closer start date is the Mid-Cape section, linking Yarmouth to Barnstable.

Paul Graves, senior project manager for the town of Barnstable Department of Public Works, said the project for a roughly four-mile section from Yarmouth to Mary Dunn Road in Barnstable has been in development for years and construction bids will be going out in August this year.

“Part of the reason why it takes years to develop these projects is a large scope of work to plan ahead, get community input, design and then go through the state’s Department of Transportation  process,” Graves said.

The Barnstable portion is broken down into two phases, Graves said, with the section going out to bid in August, Phase 3, operating ahead of the fourth phase that is set to link the terminus at Mary Dunn Road to Sandwich.

Construction is estimated to cost around $12 million, Tupper said.

“It involves some really significant infrastructure pieces, including a bridge over Yarmouth Road, a very large structure,” he said. “Some good news is that while the towns put up some money, we were successful in getting grant funding from the design, the bulk of those dollars are coming from federal and state sources.”

The section in the Mid-Cape will feature a shared-use bicycle and pedestrian path, much like the other proposed and implemented portions of the project.

Winter curtails construction in Sandwich

A smaller section in Sandwich, which is proposed to link the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway, will stretch from Route 130 to Chase Road.

“The town of Sandwich, in cooperation with the Sandwich Bikeway and Pedestrian Committee, have been working to build shared-use paths, also known as bike paths, along Service Road for some time,” said Sam Jensen, Sandwich Assistant Town Engineer.

Jensen said the Sandwich path has made “tremendous progress so far,” but winter has curtailed some of the construction. He said work will continue through this year and is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

Other desired routes are drafted up for connecting Barnstable, Mashpee and Falmouth, as well as linking Mashpee and Sandwich. But Tupper said there is no timeline on those projects.

In 2020: Rail trail extension moves into third phase

A path proposed north from Falmouth to Cape Cod Canal

Perhaps the most well-known proposal is the Bourne Rail Trail, which would connect the Shining Sea Bikeway in Falmouth to the Cape Cod Canal Bikeway in Bourne.

Recently, the project has garnered controversy regarding the proposal to remove the Falmouth Secondary rail line in order to replace it with the bike path. The Falmouth Secondary line, operated by the private railroad company Mass Coastal Railroad, is currently being used to haul freight of solid waste from the Upper Cape transfer station to an off-Cape location once or twice a week.

The proposal calls for building a roughly 6 ½ mile path and has had $20 million of federal funding made available through the Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority.

'A lot of community conversations'

Tupper said because the project spans the entire region, cooperation and coordination between towns, agencies and various stakeholders is critical for the Vision 88 project to realize completion.

“At its core, the Vision is one born out of a lot of community conversations that we and others have had throughout the years,” Tupper said.

Among the agencies involved in the project are the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation. Tupper said the state transportation agency has taken the lead on the project on the Outer Cape, while state conservation and recreation staff members operate the rail trail currently in place linking Yarmouth to Wellfleet.

Municipalities from Barnstable to Truro are stakeholders in the project as well. Tupper said the implementation of the region-wide shared-use path is more about bolstering the region’s infrastructure and connectivity than simply catering to a hobby.

“I think a lot of this work with the bike path and multimodal space, sometimes is seen in a kind of a recreational focus,” Tupper said. “But really, at the heart of it, we're talking about transportation facilities.”

Walker Armstrong reports on all things Cape and Islands, primarily focusing on courts, transportation and the Joint Base Cape Cod military base. Contact him at WArmstrong@capecodonline.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jd__walker.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape-wide bike, pedestrian trail faces planning hurdles, rising costs