A new shared-use pathway along Minot Avenue has just received half-a-million dollars worth of tailwinds, but there’s still a ways to go before rubber can hit the newly paved road. 

The $500,000 grant comes from MassTrails, a state initiative to expand access to trails across Massachusetts, and was announced Friday, June 21. The money will be used to purchase land along Minot Avenue necessary for the bike path’s construction. 

“Because the path would need to be wider than the current road layout, it will go onto property not owned by the town or the Massachusetts Department of Transportation,” said Town Administrator Derek Sullivan. “So there will be legal costs as well as the cost of the takings and easements.”

Now that this MassTrail funding is secured, the town’s next steps are to get the design finished, to purchase the necessary easements along the road and then to get the money to build it, said Planning Director Ken Buckland. 

However, these next steps will still take some time — the grant announcement from the office of Senator Marc Pacheco states the project is expected to begin construction in 2028, a date which Buckland says is “not a bad number.”

“I want to congratulate each community for being awarded these grants and for their dedication to improving the quality of life for their residents,” said Senator Pacheco. 

The path has been on the drawing board since 2005. In its current iteration, the shared-use path will run along the south side of Minot Avenue, with one end placed just after the Route 6 bridge onto Main Street and the other placed at the intersection between Minot Avenue and Great Neck Road / Depot Street. 

The path, once built, “will make it safer for people who are walking and biking on Minot Avenue,” said Buckland. 

The project will replace an existing 6-foot-wide sidewalk with a path that's 10 feet wide in most places, though the path will narrow to 8 feet in other places as required by its surroundings. It will have two lanes and will be suitable for bikes and pedestrians. 

Funding has been a perennial issue with the project. Concerns about spending the town’s money on it led the Select Board to put the brakes on the path in 2022. 

This funding from MassTrails fills one of the major funding holes which the town had been expected to provide.