Metropolitan Area Planning Council

MAPC Inner Core
MAPC North Shore And North Suburban
MAPC SouthWest, MetroWest And Minuteman
MAPC Three Rivers and South Shore

MAPC region priorities

The Boston area was the first major center of bicycling activity in the United States, the home in the 1880’s of the founders of the League of American Wheelmen (now League of American Bicyclists) and of Pope/Columbia, the first large manufacturer of bicycles in the United States. At present, with its high population density and traffic congestion, the Boston area also reflects perhaps one of the greatest opportunities for bicycle transportation in Massachusetts.

The Metropolitan Area Planning Council (MAPC) is by far the largest of all of the RPAs. For this reason, it is divided into eight subregions:

• Inner Core (IC)
• North Shore Task Force (NSTF)
• North Suburban Planning Council (NSPC)
• Minuteman Advisory Group on Interlocal Coordination (MAGIC)
• MetroWest Growth Management Committee (Metrowest)
• SouthWest Advisory Planning Committee (SWAP)
• Three Rivers Interlocal Council (TRIC)
• South Shore Coalition (SSC).

By agreement with staff, the inventory project held public meetings at four locations: central, north, west and southern. There was some overlap in coverage, but generally, the central meeting location was for the Inner Core; the northern location, for the NSTF and NSPC; the western location, for MAGIC, Metrowest and SWAP; and the southern location, for TRIC and SSC. The organization of the following sections of the report reflects this division. [Repeated here for convenient Web access]

MAPC Inner Core
MAPC North Shore And North Suburban
MAPC SouthWest, MetroWest And Minuteman
MAPC Three Rivers and South Shore

MAPC region priorities

The MAPC has indicated that it will evaluate the inventory from the present project using criteria that reflect the goals of the MAPC’s MetroPlan 2000 when developing a regional bicycle and pedestrian plan. The MAPC’s response to the priorities stated in this report may change somewhat once that evaluation has been completed. Although the inventory process was designed to capture projects proposed by cities, towns and citizens, the MAPC has pointed out that some categories of projects are underrepresented: in particular, bicycle parking. Also, due to the emphasis on populated areas in the prioritization criteria established by the EOTC, several major regional projects proposed for the region, including the Assabet River Rail Trail, Central Massachusetts Trail and SWAP/Metrowest Bikeway were not given priority status.