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Hello,

If there a bike trails in your city/town, do they keep them free of
snow during the winter?

The Town of Arlington, Mass., plows the stretch of trail from Cambridge to
Lexington. This year a private group has been paying for plowing on the
Lexington stretch too; I don't know how that is going.

This was terribly controversial in Arlington, but a few years back an
organized group persuaded the town to spend $20k for a pilot program that
would last until the money ran out.

The Public Works Director thought it might be good for a few snow storms,
but that proved sufficient for the entire winter, which was a snowy one.
Turns out it's really cheap to clear an unobstructed right of way, who'd
have thought.

The path parallels the main street in town for much of its length, where the
sidewalks are basically impassible after a bad storm. The plowed path has
become very popular with pedestrians. It's not always a good place to ride,
though it is generally free of bike-eating salt.

Disadvantages include loss of a ski trail, some damage to the trail surface
and abutting turf from plow blades, and a residue of sand that makes the
path slippery well into spring, when the town cleans the path. The path is
not supposed to be salted at all but DPW workers sometimes do it anyway.