Hello and welcome to our Tuesday evening workshop.

We're joined here by uh the Casco Bay Trails program.

Happy to have you.

If you two can please introduce yourselves and uh uh and then move forward with the presentation.

If I can ask Counselor Sold questions until the end.

Thank you.

Hi there, my name's Aitana Blevins of 49 Central Ave Lewiston.

And I'm Emma Bond.

I live in Portland, Maine, and I'm a board member of the Casco Bay Trail Alliance, as is Atana.

Mr.

Mayor, just a brief interruption.

Just so everyone knows we have a slot at about 20 to 25 minutes for this presentation, just making sure that's clear.

We do have some other items and executive session before 7 p.m.

Just for special purposes.

Thank you, Administrator Kenrouth.

Uh I did go over this with our uh two presenters beforehand.

Please continue.

Great.

So before you today, we brought a couple of postcards to show what we are going to go over.

Um as part of the Casco Bay Trail Alliance.

We are on the board who has a vision to create a 72-mile multi-use trail that's off-roads that can be used by pedestrians, bikers, anyone seeking a safe place to walk or bike.

Um up here we have a nice map showing the vision.

It's connecting Portland to Lewiston Auburn to Brunswick and then back down to Portland.

Um the first portion of it that's highlighted in yellow on your maps on the cards, is showing the 25-mile option that has been approved by legislature this year.

It's using an unused railway corridor, and we've been authorized to use it by the main uh legislature.

So that's what we're here to celebrate today and share with you.

And our next steps are to connect it from beyond the Danville Junction where it ends in Auburn to the rest of Lewiston Auburn, Brunswick, and back down.

Um I'll let Emma take the next part.

Sure.

So one exciting, and I and Atana can jump in on this as well, but with the big success this year, of course, was the legislative approval of the interim trail from Portland to Auburn.

So for that segment, we're now looking towards uh hoping to do engineering designs and ultimate construction.

And so we are working to on a several levels, continuing conversations with the main department of transportation and trying to gather an interlocal group of all the municipalities along that stretch so that they can start making decisions jointly.

And you know, it's it's as you all know, uh in city government, it's very expensive to build anything.

So it's we're we're embarking on this.

It's going to be a new stage for our nonprofit of actually trying to get this, you know, con these concrete steps built, but there's just so much excitement.

I mean, with with the the reaction we hear, and we always get we get new outreach all the time from people who are hearing about the idea for the first time.

And I think there's just so much appetite for it with um, you know, of course we we need cars for many things, but there's I think a huge appetite for people to be able to get outside not only to recreate, but with e-bikes, you know, a 10 mile if you live 10 miles from the store or from uh an errand you have to run or from work, 10 miles, 15 miles.

With an e-bike, you really can make that commute and not be stuck to a one car, or or someone uh a family could maybe have a one-car lifestyle.

That saves a lot of costs.

It's anybody can almost anybody can afford a bike.

It's a really democratic thing, it's great for public health.

It's it's just uh an amazing uh thing, but the problem is it's not safe for for many places.

And so this would be essentially um I've started thinking about this as it's a freedom thing.

We should have freedom to walk out of our door, walk out, you go for a walk, go for a bike without feeling this deep fear that we'll get hit by a car.

You know, sometimes you see uh news reports saying um, well, this biker was hit by a car, oh, but they were wearing dark colors.

You know, it shouldn't be that way.

It should be that you can go out and enjoy the outdoors, do errands.

You know, most people's most drives are about five miles or less in easy bike or or walk.

So that's the basic vision.

Um and we we you know the next steps, there's estimates that it's what maybe one million or two million a mile to actually construct it.

So you know, we'll be looking to state sources, federal sources of funding, grants, private donors.

We're hoping.

I mean, some of the some of this parts of the stretch, there's it's a that's the economic corridor of Maine.

Um, and it's all another exciting thing is that it connects um a lot of communities.

So it's connecting C D1 and C D2.

It's connecting the the two biggest uh urban centers of Maine, Portland and Lewiston Auburn.

So it's just a really exciting vision, and and we feel that it's closer now than ever because of this legislative uh advancement for for the um 25 mile corridor from Portland to Auburn.

And then do you want to talk about the reimagined?

I mean, you you probably are very familiar with the reimagining uh Washington Street effort that's been start uh been um looked into, but I that that would be a key piece that would connect um the end the day basically Danville Junction, there's an easy way to get to Washington Street once you're there, this reimagined Washington Street would get you to Lewiston, and then um members of the city council I understand are uh very well versed with the the um efforts on the Lewiston Lower Branch to which connects you know Lewiston Lower Branch to from Lewiston to Lisbon, then there's the very exciting paper mill trail that's already there that's sort of the the middle connecting piece and then the state-owned portion of that goes from Lisbon to Brunswick.

So this whole vision, I think there's exciting advancements, not only on the Portland to Auburn section, but also the the whole loop connecting Lewiston to Brunswick as well.