Westborough planning board hears divided public on Boston Worcester Airline Trail; motion to endorse withdrawn

The Westborough planning board spent most of its Feb. 4 meeting on the proposed Boston Worcester Airline Trail (BWALT), hearing sharply different views from residents and staff about costs, outreach and next steps.

Public commenters urged both support and caution. "I've renamed the fledgling organization Friends of Westborough BWALT," said Ken Kelly, who said he collected contact information for about 50 people and has begun outreach to neighboring towns. Joanne Arimini cited results of the town's 2021 master plan survey, saying "45.1% of the respondents were interested in moving BWALT forward" while noting 55.8% wanted safer bike lanes and 78.6% wanted more sidewalks. Arimini also asked why an Otis Street corridor estimate rose "from a cost of 5,500,000.0 to 9,000,000.0" for that section.

Town staff described the Otis Street work as a larger intersection-improvement project that includes BWALT as a component. "The Otis Street corridor improvement project is a much bigger project. It doesn't just include the BWALT," planning staff Jenny said, adding multiple funding sources — including MassWorks, Complete Streets, MassDOT and some ARPA — are being sought after construction estimates came back higher than earlier projections.

Residents raised questions about long-term maintenance and realistic cost ranges. "We've heard numbers like 19,000,000, 24,000,000," said Wayne Webster, urging the town to provide a min/max estimate and to plan for paid maintenance rather than relying entirely on volunteers. Don Byrne, who worked on the feasibility study, countered that the railroad right-of-way is "almost entirely intact" and that maintenance estimates developed with DPW using an established trail-calculator were "not a very large amount of money." Ferdinand, identified as the Community Development Director, said staff have worked on BWALT for more than seven years and warned it would be a shame to let that effort stop.

On the board, member John offered a written motion asking the chair to send a letter to the select board stating that "the planning board supports the continued effort of the town to establish the Boston Worcester Airline Trail (BWALT)" and recommending the select board "take no action to hinder, delay, pause, or otherwise stop reasonable efforts" to implement the trail as recommended in the town strategic and master plans. Several members said they supported the concept but wanted clearer language about transparency and public communication; concerns about whether the motion's wording would hold the select board accountable led the mover to withdraw the motion and ask staff to prepare a revised draft for distribution and additional wordsmithing before the next meeting.

The planning board repeatedly reiterated its limited role: it provides design comments, requests easements during site plan reviews, and supports the master plan, but it does not control project funding decisions, which lie with the select board. The chair closed the BWALT portion of the meeting after asking residents to provide any new information and encouraging those with further concerns to contact the select board.

What happens next: the planning board asked staff to draft a revised letter for members to review before the next meeting; no formal endorsement was transmitted to the select board at this meeting.