Saugus Branch (RIP) -> Bike to the Sea/Northern Strand Trail

People also claim that mass transit makes it possible to come into town and walk out with your 42 inch plasma tv down your pants. This is the second crime I've heard of to do even vaguely with a rail-trail in over a decade.

Active rail lines also make a much better getaway point than the woods. Maybe we should shut down PAS and the Fitchburg Line too because some robber made a break for it down the tracks in Fitchburg Monday morning. Pan Am and the commuters who were a half-hour late while the cops arrested the dude will understand that it's better to be safe than sorry. They can plant weeds and dump broken glass on the ROW to prevent it from ever happening again.

I wish people in this day and age still cared enough to want to save face when something that stupid spills out of their mouths. Alas, this is the era of doubling-down on stupid.

joshuahouse wrote:People also claim that mass transit makes it possible to come into town and walk out with your 42 inch plasma tv down your pants. This is the second crime I've heard of to do even vaguely with a rail-trail in over a decade.

The same argument was used years ago when commuter rail was proposed to Westboro and Grafton. The locals feared that gangs would board the train in Boston, and stop off in Westboro and pillage the town, and return on the trains at night. Maybe that's why the commuter rail stations were put out in the boonies...

Gang-bangers live for the 90-minute reverse commute.

There have been concerned people along the Saugus Branch, as well, who say that the trail will bring fighting youths and drug use in the now "inaccessible" ROW. Let me tell you: the entire length through Saugus has a dirt trail from kids walking it and from ATVs riding down it. When I was in middle school, kids used to have fights on the tracks and some kid broke his back on a rail in a fight. Kids go drinking and doing drugs since it's concealed as is, and "normal" people won't go down there. People fail to realize that by opening this place up, so many normal law abiding citizens will be using this trail that it will discourage the undesirable activities. We do not know what actually happened and the full details on the Topsfield incident, but not as many people would be using the trail there as compared to Saugus. Saugus would have a constant flow of pedestrians and cyclists, whereas in Topsfield, well... nobody lives there to use it, really! Maybe more people will when the full Wakefield-to-Newburyport length is opened up and cyclists come from all around to hit the trail.