Somerville Community Path

The Somerville Community Path is a paved mixed-use path in Somerville, Massachusetts, running 0.8 mile (1.3 km) from the Alewife Linear Park border to Lowell Street via Davis Square.

The Somerville Community Path is a continuation of the Cambridge Linear Park, which runs from the Cambridge-Somerville border west to Alewife Station, the Fitchburg Cutoff Path, and the Minuteman Bikeway. Proceeding eastbound, the bicycle and pedestrian paths diverge slightly just before Seven Hills Park, to pass through Davis Square. Pedestrians have grade-level crosswalks, and bicyclists are routed via nearby streets or may walk their bikes. They join again at Grove Street and continue to Lowell Street (though there is an MBTA busway linking Grove Street to College Avenue).

The original path connected Alewife Linear Park to Davis Square, and was completed in 1985. A stretch of 0.6 mile (1.0 km) heading east from Davis Square to Cedar Street was constructed in 1992, and in 2013, construction began on a further extension to Lowell Street, which officially opened in August 2015.

The Boston and Lowell Railroad was chartered in 1830 and started service in 1835. The main line is now the MBTA Lowell Line. From near Alewife on the Cambridge-Arlington border, to Lowell Street in Somerville, the Cambridge Linear Park and Somerville Community Path follow a railroad right-of-way that was laid out in 1870, and later known as the "Fitchburg Freight Cutoff", "Somerville Freight Cut-off", "Somerville Freight Spur", or Davis Square Freight Cut-Off. (In the 1980s and 1990s, after the Red Line extension, there remained an active freight spur from the Lowell Line to the "MaxPak" site, where the last industrial user went out of business in 2002.) The Boston and Lowell built the connection from its main line (at Somerville Junction, near modern-day Lowell Street), to the Lexington and Arlington Railroad (now mostly converted to the Minuteman Bikeway), which the Boston and Lowell had just acquired. Passenger service ran via this connection from 1870 until 1927. An extension connected to the Fitchburg Railroad main line, now the MBTA Fitchburg Line, between what are now Alewife Station and Brighton Street, Belmont.

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