Solon Economou

Cape Cod Rail Trail shames Sudbury NIMBYs

I know this is true because I read it in the Globe! :)

Cape Cod is justly proud of its Rail Trail, the bike trail that runs 28 miles from Dennis to Wellfleet, with a relatively new offshoot into Chatham.  It is one of the outstanding accomplishments of our little sandbar, one you would think would be emulated wherever possible.

But not in Sudbury, where the very wealthy do not want one in their backyard.  Shades of anti-Cape Wind farm NIMBYism!  The Sudbury trail woud be a segment of a proposed 25-mile bike trail running from Lowell to Framingham.

The Globe quotes opponents afraid what it would do to their "100-acre estate," others decrying the spoiling of a "pristine landscape," others in panic screaming that the trail would "draw hundreds of thousands of bicyclists who would bring with them...crime...trespassing...vandalism...assault."

These wild assertions are so reminiscent of the anti-Cape Wind farm opponents who used to scream about towering wind turbines blotting out the sun if not the universe itself, the despoiling of our "pristine" Nantucket Sound, the destruction of our tourist trade (which will actually be helped by the Cape Wind farm), and scores of other false objections which have been totally discredited as born of ignorance and disinformation.

Sudbury, described as "a wealthy hamlet of stately Colonials," is in the same category as our wealthy Nantucket Sound shoreline.  The very rich who have planted themselves there do not want their private universe encroached upon in any way by hoi polloi.  It is the same NIMBY attitude and makes me wonder if these people share the same genes or memes.

Like the Nantucket Sound NIMBYs, the Sudbury NIMBY's state that "they are prepared to do whatever it takes" to stop the project.  I think they could better use their money for a number of worthwhile charities than to spend it on a wrong-headed cause.

If the anti-rail trail people had visited the Cape Cod Rail Trail, and if the anti-wind farm people had visited the Danish wind farms, they might see that their fear and panic are totally unjustified and many of their objections fictitious.

If John Swift's Gulliver were to travel through Massachusetts today, he might find a new culture on Cape Cod and in Sudbury: Brobdingnagian wealth accompanied by a Lilliputian mentality.