History/Timeline

  • 1835 Dedham spur of Boston & Providence Railroad is opened

  • 1967 last train runs

  • 1999 Town purchases corridor for $1.5M

  • 2002 Rail Corridor is capped by Dedham Department of Public works with oversight from the Mass Dept. of Environmental Protection as a “first step” in a “rails-to-trails” project. Download the PDF.

  • 2009 Open Space Plan recommends the rail trail.

  • 2009 Dedham Master Plan recommends the rail trail.

  • 2010 Town of Dedham and Dedham School Department signed a letter of commitment to Mass DOT agreeing to conditions regarding the Rail Trail in order to get permission and funding to build the Avery School on the old corridor. Download the PDF.

  • 2013 Dedham/Westwood Bicycle & Pedestrian Network Plan includes the proposed rail trail.

  • 2013 May Town Meeting voted to appropriate $10,000 for the conceptual plan that was done by the Rails to Trails Conservancy.

  • 2014 (February) 1st Public Meeting

  • 2014 Presentations to School Committee, MBCG & Park and Recreation

  • 2014 (October) 2nd Public Meeting

  • 2015 (February) 3rd Public Meeting

  • 2015 (April) 4th Public Meeting/Abutters only

  • 2016 (spring) Board of Selectmen vote to accept donations raised by the Friends of the DHRT that would help fund the hiring of Weston & Sampson to create the Feasibility Study.

  • 2017 Feasibility Study is completed.

  • 2018 May Town Meeting, Article 19 - which would pay for a traffic study around the schools and the hiring of a consultant to help the Board of Selectmen set up a process for deciding on the rail trail project, is voted down 146 to 105. The town loses a $50K grant that would have offset the costs of the traffic study work.

  • 2018 November Town Meeting, the traffic study is approved for the full price of $90K.

  • 2019 Support for the trail among residents remains strong. The public survey and workshops that were done to inform the Open Space and Parks & Recreation Master Plans, showed that support for the rail trail/walkability/bike-ability amenities was overwhelming. The rail trail is still a recommended priority in the 2019 Open Space Master Plan update.

  • 2020 Rail trail volunteers collected over 2K signatures of Dedham voters to place a referendum question on the June 27th ballot. It was intended to take the temperature of the town and asked if people would favor this project. The vote lost 3,250 to 3,011. While it was almost a tie, we feel that much was misunderstood about the project and we call upon town officials to take leadership on bringing the two sides to the table to determine the future of this 10 acre parcel of public land. If not a park, then what? Dedham paid $1M for the parcel with the intent of using it for recreation. Let’s fulfill this goal.

    What’s next?? Many rail trail projects face negative votes in their path to being built. We see the 2020 vote as a sign that a large number of people DO support the project and we feel with better information - based on facts and the experiences of other communities, many more would support this effort.

    Your involvement is the ONLY way this will happen.