Worcester Moves To Expand Blackstone River Bikeway To Downtown

WORCESTER, MA — The Worcester City Council on Tuesday accepted a $1.6 million MassDOT grant for a project to widen Lamartine Street in the Green Island area, which is also a key part of a larger extension of the Blackstone River Bikeway into the downtown area.

With the grant money, Worcester will widen Lamartine between Quinsigamond Avenue and Hermon Street, adding bike lines on both sides of the street, among other traffic upgrades.

The Lamartine widening complements other traffic improvements in the area like the Polar Park development and Kelley Square overhaul, but it's also part of a bike infrastructure project called the Segment 7 Bikeway.

Once complete, Segment 7 will add 0.82 miles of bike lanes from Quinsigamond Avenue to Lamartine and Hermon and onto Frances J McGrath Boulevard to the Franklin Street intersection. After Franklin, the pathway continues along the sidewalk until Union Station.

Segment 7 will connect existing bike lanes along Millbury Street in Green Island to the beginning of the dedicated Blackstone River Bikeway that begins at the Blackstone Heritage Corridor Visitor Center off of McKeon Road. Presently, Green Island bike lanes end where Millbury passes under I-290. That leaves a 0.8-mile stretch at the edge of the Vernon Hill neighborhood without a marked bike lane.

Long-range plans call for the Blackstone River Bikeway to connect Worcester to Providence 50 miles south. So far only about 3 miles of the bikeway has been completed between Worcester and Millbury. The paved bicycle and walking path picks up again in Uxbridge and travels to Blackstone and then to Woonsocket.

The Segment 7 portion in downtown Worcester should be complete in 2021, MassDOT officials said this week.

Clarification: This article has been updated to add details about a portion of the Blackstone River Bikeway in Uxbridge and Blackstone.