CLARKSBURG, Mass. — The town and state are adapting plans for a walking route for children along West Cross Road from the school to the Community Center. 

 

Clarksburg School earlier this year was awarded a $1.2 million Safe Routes to School grant toward developing a safe way to access the neighboring town field, installing a sidewalk, and putting in a crosswalk from there to the Community Center, which also is the town's evacuation center. 

 

There are few sidewalks in the rural community and West Cross Road is no exception. The students can now reach the town field through a rough path in the woods and walk the field until crossing the road or walk along the sidewalk-free road, a heavily traveled way with no shoulders.

 

Select Board Chair Robert Norcross told the School Committee last week that the walkway along the road could more likely be an apron as the town doesn't have the capacity to maintain a sidewalk. 

 

But the trail could be changed to a narrow path that would allow for use during the winter. This had been discussed with the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Planning Committee that is incorporating the field, the school, the center and the four corners area in its planning. 

 

Right now there's no way to keep the path clear in the winter for use as an emergency route. Instead, Norcross said the designers are looking at a limited one-way road that could be blocked during non-school hours.

 

"It'll be a narrow road, but it'll be wide enough for our small plow to get on, to come around back and to go down the town field and then the Safe Routes can take it from there to go to the school," he said. "That is all in preliminary work. But I think it's important that the school knows what we're doing, and it's also important to know that the school comes up with ... to make sure we have meetings coming on and push for this."