Cape cod national seashore bike trail7/25/2023 "Shank Painter Road is kind of our strip mall zone," says Ahlberg. It's also an important everyday transportation destination for the town's residents. "It behooves us to spend this money well, and get the most safety we can get."Īhlberg told StreetsblogMASS that Shank Painter Road isn't merely an important recreational connection that would let more people bike between the town and the National Seashore. "The concept we have now was designed in 2017, and it’s OK, but if the bike lanes are just painted, we think they should be physically protected," says Ahlberg of the Provincetown Bicycle Committee. The project would rebuild the intersection of Route 6 and Shank Painter Road as a one-lane roundabout, which would connect the Route 6 multi-use path to sidewalks and a new pair of buffered bike lanes on both sides of Shank Painter Road. In conjunction with the Route 6 project in Provincetown, MassDOT and the town are also planning upgrades to Shank Painter Road, a major cross-town route that currently lacks any sidewalks along most of its length. The other half – what are currently the eastbound lanes – will be trimmed down to create a 16-foot-wide car-free path: Conceptual plans for an upcoming MassDOT project would convert half of the Route 6 highway to a new car-free path on a one-mile segment of the roadway between Shank Painter Road and Herring Cove Beach. On the mile-long segment of Route 6 between Provincetown's Shank Painter Road and the beach, the northern side of the divided highway – what are currently the two westbound highway lanes – will be converted into a normal two-lane roadway. Two smaller projects underway this year will add shorter path connections in the National Seashore along Race Point Road towards Conwell Street, and from Herring Cove to Route 6 (thicker dotted lines). The project would also add sidewalks and bike lanes to Shank Painter Road to connect the network to downtown Provincetown. A map of existing ADA-accessible trails (solid green lines) in Provincetown, and the proposed new paths that would be built along Route 6 (dashed line). So in an upcoming project, the town and MassDOT are planning to connect downtown Provincetown with the trail network of the Cape Cod National Seashore by cutting Route 6 in half. In the adjoining town of Truro, Route 6 narrows back down to a normal two-lane road, and it's hard to justify maintaining a four-lane freeway that connects two small towns to a beach. They had a lot of empty publicly-owned land – the Province Lands (which later became the National Seashore) – and they just built the biggest highway they could," explains Rik Ahlberg, chair of the Provincetown Bicycle Committee. "When it was built, there was the expectation that there was going to be a lot of coastal development out here, kind of like an Atlantic City of Cape Cod. This trail is wheelchair accessible, and can be shortened by starting at the Doane Rock picnic area.The small city of Provincetown, located on the tip of Cape Cod, is already a renowned vacation destination in part because of its tight-knit, walkable downtown, where cars must creep at a slow walking pace behind throngs of pedestrians every summer, and its network of paved paths in the nearby Cape Cod National Seashore.īut for over half a century, an orphaned four-lane divided highway – Route 6 – has cut off the town of 3,000 people from the sand dunes, trails, and beaches that lie to the north of the highway. Magnificent vistas of the salt marsh and the great Atlantic Ocean are not to be missed. Nauset Bike Trail starts at the National Seashore’s Visitor Center and ends only 1.6 miles later at Coast Guard Beach. ![]() Just off the path, side trips offer ocean beaches and fishing piers, country stores and quaint villages, parks, picnic areas, and places to lodge and dine.įor more information on the Cape Cod Rail Trail Click Hereįor more information on the Nauset Bike Trail Click Here ![]() Today the tracks are gone, but the convenience to all of Eastham is easily accessible. The trail follows the old Penn Central Railway tracks. The Cape Cod Rail Trail (“the Bike Path”) is a twenty-four mile path that starts on Route 134 in Dennis and ends at LeCount Hollow in Wellfleet, having traveled the entire length of Eastham. Within and around the trails are heavily wooded forests, lakes and quiet kettle ponds, salt marshes, bogs, winding creeks and sandy beaches. ![]() Both bike paths are paved and provide an opportunity for bicyclists and hikers to enjoy a very special encounter with Cape Cod’s charm and beauty. ![]() Eastham boasts two bike paths and several walking trails that travel through remarkably picturesque scenery.
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