Our town is embarking on a project that will change the face of Hopkinton for generations — an 8-mile trail that will connect Hopkinton Center to Milford to the south and to Ashland to the east. We need to get the Upper Charles Trail right.

A friend recently reminded me of his two guiding principles for Hopkinton and its residents:
We want to be good ancestors. He got this concept from a mutual friend who has Native American heritage (and who helped initiate the Hopkinton Community Endowment Fund), who noted that certain Native Americans try and plan seven generations out.
Hopkinton should be a walk/run community. This idea stems from a desire on his part, as a local businessman, to have something to offer residents once their kids graduate from the town’s great schools to encourage them to stay in town. And obviously, a town with a walk/run focus encourages overall healthy living and community.

I feel these are good principles for Hopkinton. Walking through the woods on the Center Trail on a revisioned rail bed is an example of such forward thinking; much of the rest of the rail bed now in private ownership is not. The current concept for the Upper Charles Trail, extending unsafely across and along busy Hayden Rowe Street in my opinion violates these ideals.

— Peter LaGoy, Hopkinton

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