A sign barring motorized vehicles from the Columbia Greenway rail trail where it crosses Shaker Road was covered with spray paint recently and an obscenity was painted on the nearby pavement. (Photo courtesy Columbia Greenway)
WESTFIELD – A section of the Columbia Greenway rail trail was opened almost a year ago and nearly reached its first anniversary without vandalism.
Although construction equipment used to build the walking and biking trail on the former railway route north from Shaker Road toward the river crossing in the Tin Bridge area was vandalized in May 2012, the Greenway was free of defacement for almost a year since its official opening on Oct. 12, 2012. A vandal with a can of spray paint ended the trail’s honeymoon recently when a sign was defaced and an obscenity was painted on the trail’s surface.
In Southwick, where a three-mile section of the trail was opened in 2010, graffiti was an immediate problem when the construction of a tunnel was needed to cross Point Grove Road, according to Dan Call of the town’s Parks and Recreation Department which manages the trail in Southwick.
He said that obscenities were painted on the tunnel walls even before the tunnel was finished and the trail was dedicated.
Call said that a response was needed and a fifth-grade class from Woodland School came up with an idea to deter vandalism there.
Call said the class made a project of painting murals on both sides of the tunnel.
“It was really nice artwork and it wasn’t touched for almost a year”, Call said but went on to say that it has since been “tagged” with graffiti and, after a formal complaint, Call said “we had to paint over parts of the mural” to cover obscenities.
Call said the current plan to protect the tunnel from graffiti is the installation of a system of lights and cameras that will monitor the tunnel thanks to help from the Southwick Rail Trail Friends, a group dedicated to supporting the rail trail.
He said that cameras can be very effective in protecting sensitive spots on the trails but stressed that trail users are the best protectors.
“Everybody has a cell phone these days” so persons who see anything untoward should call police, he said.
“It works,” he said. “They’ve been very responsive here.”
Other communities have taken different approaches to protecting the rail trail as it wends its way north.
On the Norwottuck Rail Trail in Northampton, police patrol on bicycles and Easthampton police recently purchased a rough terrain vehicle to allow police to patrol the Manhan Rail Trail.
In Westfield, Jeffrey J. LaValley, the chairman of the board of directors of the Columbia Greenway, asks that patrons of the trail immediately call police to report any suspicious or questionable actions observed.
“We are in conversation with the city to take care of the situation,” he said.
Westfield Police Capt. Hipolito Nunez said that police will, of course, respond to citizen reports of ongoing incidents and pointed out that signs of past vandalism can be easily reported to police through the department’s website.
Residents can go to westfieldpolice.org and, by clicking on the “Report incident here” button, report any signs of damage or misbehavior on the trail. Reports may be made anonymously, Nunez said.
