Holliston Multi-Use Trail Home Page

Inside

Many thanks to our sponsors, whose generous donations of land, grant funding, and volunteer time made this rail trail to bike path conversion project possible.

Learn more about it. See what town officials and other residents are saying. Visit the FAQ page to get answers to frequently asked questions about the Holliston portion of the multi-use trail and the News page to see what's been done so far. This site was created by the Holliston Trails Committee, a volunteer organization created by the Board of Selectmen to assist the feasibility, design, funding and implementation of the trail.

12/2010 - Purchase & Sale

Photograph by Paul Barrows

GREAT NEWS: The purchase and sale agreement was signed by the Town Selectman on November 29th for the purchase/lease of the rail bed from Sherborn to Hopping Brook Road. Several other pieces of the trail have been purchased or are currently in the process of being donated. Now it goes back to CSX for their signature.

After an environmental study is completed work can start on the trail. While no funds currently exist for the building of the trail, the committee is working on obtaining grants, will make use of recycled materials and hopes to have plentiful volunteer help to begin construction.

This is such a great asset for the town of Holliston and the connection into the Milford trail will make it even better. Thanks to everyone who has helped us get here. It has been a long journey.

Need for volunteers

We are currently looking for one or more volunteers to run a "Friends of Holliston Trails" group. This group would help raise money to support the trail construction and maintenance and expand awareness about the trail throughout the community. If you are interested in volunteering please e-mail us at HollistonTrails@gmail.com

10/10 - Did you know?

Photograph provided by Ginger Gibeault Photography

The rail trail is starting to take shape. The town purchased a section of land between Hopping Brook Road and South Street in November 2009 and have cleaned up that section. We cleaned up the land between South Street and the Milford town line that provides a direct connection to the recently paved Milford Section of the Upper Charles Trail. We are getting very close to purchasing a section between Cross Street and Church Street and will be leasing the remainder. We hope to secure the entire 6.7 miles of right of way in either ownership or lease this year or early next year.

9/18/10 – Trail Clean up - South Street to the Milford Bike Trail connection

It was a perfect day to be out on the trail. The temperatures were in the high 60’s and no humidity. A special thanks to all the volunteers who helped cut down trees and clean up garbage in an effort to continue trail improvements. During clean up it was great to see several people walking and riding their bikes on the trail.

Trail clean up September 2010

Milford is close to completing phase 2 of the Upper Charles Trail that brings the trail to Milford's border with Holliston (photo below).

Milford Trail near Holliston

4/27/10--Keeping rivers and streams clean and trash-free

What a nice surprise! I stopped by the Upper Charles Trail on Saturday and found a crew spending Earth Day cleaning up a Hopping Brook, a tributary to the Charles River, and the Upper Charles Trail between Hopping Brook Road and South Street. Some may know that this section of the rail trail was recently purchased by the Town of Holliston in November 2009. While Trail Committee members and volunteers have been performing trail cleanups of this section of the Trail since November, none have performed a cleanup to the extent that this volunteer group did. The group was organized by Melissa Simoncini, New England Waterworks Association’s Young Professional Committee as part of a National River Cleanup™. The website for the National River Cleanup™ organization states that “millions of tons of trash end up in our nations’s streams each year.” The National River Cleanup™ has reportedly cleaned up 1,000 tons of litter and debris from America’s rivers and streams since 1991.

Clean up group

The disturbing part of the cleanup is that much of the litter was recent, including a car battery, car parts, motor oil containers, gas cans, tires, swing sets, and of course plenty of beer cans, trash and other household litter. Hopefully, as the Trail is used more frequently by law-abiding citizens, the littering and dumping will decrease, and our rivers and streams will be cleaner for it. The Holliston Trails Committee sends out a sincere thank you to New England Waterworks Association and especially to the very ambitious Young Professional Committee for their hard work cleaning up Hopping Brook and the Upper Charles Trail.

New Eng. Waterworks Accoc.

The volunteers for the Holliston section as pictured include Melissa Simoncini, Tara McManus, Lou Soracco, Iseult Kavanagh and some canine assistants. There were four other members helping to cleanup the nearby rivers.

To access previous updates Holliston’s Multi-Use Trail

Click Here

Welcome. Here you'll find the latest information on the Holliston section of the proposed Upper Charles Multi-Use Trail, a state-funded project to convert a 20-mile, abandoned rail bed in five communities into a scenic, recreational path for bicycling, walking, cross-country skiing, roller-blading, and other non-motorized uses.

Join the Friends of Holliston Trails Facebook page for the most recent updates and trail information:

Since 1997, Holliston has been in negotiations with Jacksonville, Fla.-based CSX