After twenty years in the making, the Middlesex Greenway opened in grand fashion on Saturday, September 15th. The mayors of Edison, Metuchen and Woodbridge, three towns that the Greenway traverses, along with numerous Freeholders and a US Senator were all in attendance. While there are still a few details that need to be completed before the initial 3.5 mile trail segment is entirely complete, the popularity of the trail was readily apparent on the grand opening Saturday as at least one hundred people were observed using the trail, most of whom were not attending the grand opening ceremonies.
Some of the dozens of users seen on the Greenway. |
Senator Bob Menendez speaks at the trail opening. |
Mike and Anne Kruimer of the East Coast Greenway Alliance pause on the bridge over US Route 1 built several years ago by NJDOT for the Middlesex Greenway as part of a highway renovation project. |
View Middlesex Greenway in a larger map
Finally, it is hoped by greenway planners and advocates that this 3.5 mile segment is only the beginning. To the west there are already plans in Metuchen to extend the Greenway to the limits of the Metuchen boarder and possibly beyond. On the eastern end there are tentative plans to extend the trail over the Garden State Parkway and into Perth Amboy. This addition would greatly increase the transportation utility of the Middlesex Greenway. However, even though the train tracks over the Parkway haven't been used for years, the railroad company has plans to reactivate the tracks in the future to service warehouses, industry and a possible port on the Raritan River in Edison.
Either way, the Edison Greenway is greatly welcomed recreation and transportation amenity in northern Middlesex County and many hope that this will be the first of a number of other rail trail and other similar multiuse trail projects in the county.
For more photo's see the slide show below. All photo's in this post and below slide show are copyrighted and are the sole property of Andrew J. Besold.
2 comments:
Great to see that the trail is already so popular. And how awesome to have a bike/ped bridge over Route 1. I can think of a few other communities that could benefit from something like that!
It's about time!!!!!!!!! 21 yrs in the making and now a 3mi + corridor thru a heavily congested area.best yet it was kept out of the hands of developers, now onto South Plainfield and east to Perth Ambot to link with the Victory Bridge and shore and the Outerbridge crossing and SI and NYC...............
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