SOUTHWICK – Dan Call of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail in Westfield approached the Select Board on Tuesday evening to discuss counting the number of people that use trails.
According to Call, members of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail have been working on coming up with a way to track the number of people that use the trail since he was the Chairman of the Open Space Committee in 1995.
Dan Call of the Columbia Greenway Trail in Westfield, spoke to the Select Board on Tuesday night. (Photo courtesy of Greg Fitzpatrick)
Recently, the members of the trail committee have bought three counters. An infra-red device, the counter will be able to count people that use the trail. One counter will be going on the Shaker Road part of the trail near the Southwick line, and a second one will go on Main Street near the Stop and Shop.
Call’s reason for approaching the Select Board is the fact that Westfield wants to donate the third counter to Southwick for them to use on their rail trail. Along with fellow members Bob Pak and John Tassinari, the Columbia Greenway trail committee wants to work with Southwick moving forward.
“We’re so close, we’re neighbors,” said Call. “This is a good way to initiate it.”
“The main purpose to having a counter on your community rail trail is that it could help the town or city get more grant money from the state that pertains to the trail.” Call pointed out that if the state is doing a special initiative that relates to rail trails, they could use data from the counter to help them with their project.
Although the Select Board was unaware that Call would be speaking with them, they think that having a counter for their trail could be helpful.
“I think it’s a great idea to keep track of how many people are using it,” said Select Board Vice-Chairman Joe Deedy.
Members of the Columbia Greenway Rail Trail will be helping the Friends of Southwick Rail Trail install the counter. It’s unknown at this time when the counter will be installed at the Southwick Rail Trail.
